


And It Won't Be Too Much

by odetteandodile



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Event Planner!Bucky, Fluff, Happily Ever After, M/M, Maria and Sam giving all the shit to Steve, Meet-Cute, Natasha not taking Bucky's shit, Sappy Ending, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Soldier!Steve, Steve in Uniform, all the necessities really, an adorable dog, and my desire for marvel to let Maria Hill have a real personality, brief mentions of violence, bucky in suits, emotionally healthy dating, featuring my pet thing for Tommy Lee Jones in TFA, happy and nice, literally giving them the soft epilogue they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 04:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odetteandodile/pseuds/odetteandodile
Summary: Bucky Barnes is an event planner who has landed a civilian contractor gig with Colonel Phillips to plan the annual Marine Corps Ball.Steve Rogers is an up and coming Captain who has been finding lots of reasons to lurk around the XO's offices these days.Featuring: a helpful cast of friends (and Colonel Phillips, who may help but NOT because he cares AT ALL), Steve's dog, some well-timed swing dancing, and even more kissing.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first anything for Steve and Bucky, so I really really hope you enjoy! (praise hands for [calendulae](https://calendulae.tumblr.com) for betaing and also everything else about her because she's the Most).
> 
> Also fun fact this story is based on how my aunt and uncle for reals met and they will have been married 27 years this summer so that's fun. Also NOBODY tell either of them about this. It stays between all of us, okay?
> 
> Title from Ingrid Michaelson's Are We There Yet? (are we there yet?/home home home/where you will lie on the rug/while i play with the dog/and it won't be too much/cuz this is too much for me to hold).

The reason Colonel Phillips—despite all of his denials—loves Bucky Barnes (aside from his sparkling personality, obviously) is that Bucky is actually really, really good at his job. 

Bucky has a healthy enough self-esteem to mention this to the Colonel at their check-in meeting, just to watch Phillip’s eyes roll back in his head as if they’re never going to stop. 

“Barnes,” he says, looking up from a sheaf of papers in his hands. Bucky knows that as an XO he has a ton of stuff to do at all times, all of which he’d rather pay attention to than event planning. Which is why their meetings usually consist of Bucky writing out whatever proposals for supplies he wants while Phillips ignores him and does other work. Generally the Colonel only interjects to read things like _“beurre blanc” _or _“cheeseboard” _with varying tones of disgust. Bucky isn’t sure if he hates these things in theory or if he has some kind of specific dislike of the items he mentions. He figures it doesn’t matter since he always approves the purchases Bucky’s proposed anyway.____

_____ _

_____ _

“Yes?” Bucky asks, innocently. There’s nothing that makes Colonel Phillips close his eyes as if he’s asking the lord for strength like when Bucky plays innocent. 

He does close his eyes, drawing a deep breath in through his nose. When he opens them he points at Bucky with a gnarled finger. 

“If I get taken down by some sort of cardiac event before we get to the 10th and this damn ball I want you to know that it was these meetings,” he says, and Bucky smiles. 

“And _that _face,” he adds, turning back to his papers.__

____

____

“Noted,” Bucky says cheerfully, clicking out of a few tabs on his laptop that they’ve already covered. “I’ll plan you one hell of a funeral though, sir.” 

Colonel Phillips flicks his gaze to Bucky but doesn’t comment, and Bucky is certain that he’s fighting a smile at one side of his deeply carved mouth. 

“Anyway,” Bucky adds, “I hope you don’t. I’ve got every intention of getting you drunk and making you point out the handsomest, most up and coming, unattached gentleman officer you’ve got that might be looking to get seduced by a charming civilian.” 

Colonel Phillips barks out a laugh, slightly surprising Bucky. “Barnes there isn’t enough champagne in the world that’d see me drunk and you sober enough to remember anything I say.” 

“Okay,” Bucky says slyly, “but what about the bottle of twenty-five year Macallan I already put aside just for you?”

Phillips looks thoughtful. 

“Now that, Barnes.” He pauses, then looks back down at his stack of paperwork, “that might get you the name of a Captain or two.” 

It’s Bucky’s turn to let out a bark of laughter. He hadn’t been sure what the Colonel’s reaction might be. The man is ancient, he’d come up through the ranks deep in Don’t Ask Don’t Tell mentality. If he’d seemed uncomfortable Bucky would’ve just dropped the jokes and chalked it up to generational repression. Bucky isn’t going to go back into the closet for anybody at this point in life (or even for a fat military contract that he hopes he’ll get again next year) but he also isn’t a teen looking to prove something to a father figure either. If Phillips had gone awkwardly quiet on him about the fact that he’d like to wake up to some dress blues on his floor on November eleventh, he wasn’t going to be too broken up about it. 

Judging from the gravelly chuckle Phillips lets escape him, that isn’t something he needs to worry about. How about that. 

“Hell,” Bucky says, good mood swelling as the older man lets a small (like, very tiny but _definitely there _) curve linger at the sides of his mouth, “I’ve got it in the trunk of my car right now if that’s all it takes—I wouldn’t say no to a couple practice dates before this thing happens.”__

____

____

“Don’t press your luck,” Phillips drawls, not looking up. 

Bucky gives a dramatic sigh. “So withholding.” 

“Don’t start with me Barnes, I’ll requisition that whiskey and give you nothing in return.” 

“Sir, yes sir!” Bucky says, giving sharp salute. He’s been on base and around the marines to see enough of them that he’s pretty sure it looks real. Phillips snorts, apparently not sold. 

“Only in your darkest nightmares,” he remarks cryptically. “Now get out of my conference room so I can pretend I’ve never had to have an opinion about—” he flaps his hand, “any of this shit.” 

Bucky starts stacking the papers and samples he’d laid out on the table, then bites the inside of his cheek. He’s been saving up this little cherry bomb to drop on Phillips at just the right moment, sure the man has forgotten all about the tradition, but he’s feeling so gleeful he can’t help himself. 

“Ah, that reminds me, sir. Have you considered the song you’ll want to open the floor with?”

Now Phillips does look up from his papers, his face wearing an expression that Bucky thinks has probably killed men before just from the terror. Luckily he prepared himself for it before asking the question. 

“My _what _?”__

____

____

Bucky looks down at the conference table, fiddling with the edge of a file folder and pointedly not looking at him or he knows he’ll grin. 

“You know, it’s tradition for the XO to open the dancing in honor of the Marine Corps' birthday—I was wondering if you’d thought about a song or anything.” He looks up, face carefully blank. “Or should I be asking Mrs. Phillips directly, sir?”

Phillips looks like a pot someone forgot on the stove and has left to boil over. 

“Leave. _Now _.” He sounds like he might choke on the word.__

____

____

“You got it, sir. You can let me know what song you’ve picked on Friday.” Bucky tosses him a wink. 

The corners of the man’s mouth have turned down to a cartoonish degree, and he splutters (a new sound from him, and Bucky feels smug to have elicited it). _What a good day _.__

____

____

“Alright, I’m off to make some incredibly difficult decisions about flatware,” Bucky says, snapping his laptop shut and turning to the Colonel with as sincere an expression as he can muster without it collapsing into laughter. “Now Sir, are you _absolutely _certain you don’t want me to run those options by you before I commit?”__

____

____

Colonel Phillips rolls a baleful eye at him over the shiny expanse of the conference table, and Bucky tucks another laugh away at the corners of his mouth, turning it into what he hopes is an ambiguous smirk. The man looks more like a hound dog than any person he’s ever seen before, he thinks with wry affection. Similar personality too. 

“Barnes,” Phillips drawls in the high pitch that means he’s about to say something witheringly sarcastic, “do I seem to you like a man who has one iota of interest in flatware? I only ask because I wonder, smart man that you are, what makes you think that I would be spending the Marine Corps’ honest-to-god American dollars on your services if I myself were willing to spend one single moment more of my day thinking about this than I already have to?”

It all seems to come out in a single breath without taxing him. His face might be craggier than the Sierra Nevadas but the man has a lung capacity which can’t be topped. Bucky privately suspects that he does breathing exercises at home just to make sure his rants are never inhibited. 

Bucky just smiles at him earning another hound dog glare, which he doesn’t mind. Colonel Phillips might have all of his soldiers shaking in their boots, but Bucky got his number early on—while he’s mean to everyone, he’s meanest if he thinks it’s possible he might not hate you. And since Bucky gets that look more than almost anyone else who has popped in and out of these meetings in the past month, he guesses that means Phillips is in danger of really enjoying Bucky’s company. 

“For the pleasure of my company, colonel?” Bucky says with a grin as he shrugs his messenger bag over his shoulder, “Why wouldn’t you want to spend money that isn’t even yours so we can hang out and plan a party together?” 

“OUT.” Phillips points to the door without breaking eye contact, and Bucky laughs as he moves to comply. 

 

He’d been yanking the Colonel’s chain a little bit about the flatware, though admittedly he’ll need to figure out those rentals soon. But as Bucky leaves the base, he finds that it’s too beautiful an afternoon to go straight back to work. After all, what is the point of being self-employed if you can’t blow off working once in a while and sit on the beach instead? 

He sighs happily as he leans back on his hands, closed eyes turned toward the sun. _Fucking California _, he thinks lovingly. It’s October but you’d never know; no tinge of fall has even begun to touch here. Not that palm trees and sand dunes really show the seasons much anyway. But the sky is also still cloudless and brittle as August, and Bucky won’t be surprised if they ride Santa Anas all the way into a warm Thanksgiving this year. It definitely seems like things are going to be nice still for the ball unless the weather really turns on a dime here.__

____

____

He hums to himself, mind coming back to work. 

He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d gotten the contract to plan the annual Marine Corps Ball. Since he struck out with his own business he’s mostly been doing non-profit fundraisers, a handful of bougie retirement parties, and a couple of corporate shindigs. He’d had no idea what it would be like as a civilian contractor trying to work within military budgets and all that. As it turns out, Colonel Phillips cares enough about not having to do anything even resembling party planning to throw as much money as Bucky wants at him to make everything happen on his own. 

It’s perfect. 

Not that he has taken advantage of the Colonel’s profligacy exactly, but…it’s going to be a pretty awesome night. And it’s the first truly black tie event he’s gotten to do (Californians aren’t big on _formal _, even the rich ones), and he’s looking forward to the glitz and glamor and getting to see it all come together.__

____

____

He’s interrupted in his musings by a noise, a soft rustling which quickly becomes the low crunch of a dozen or so pairs of boots on the sand—Marines in PT dress flash past him up the beach, moving way faster than a large group of people running in tandem should be able to move. He thinks he recognizes the two in front—the brown haired woman who’s Phillips’ aide—Hill, he thinks. The other guy he hasn’t officially met. Just noticed because of the eyes and the jaw and the shoulders and all the stuff that is happening around those features which is equally memorable. 

His mouth curls at the corners and he squints at the group until they disappear behind the security gates that mark where the public beach ends and the military’s beach begins. 

Bucky won’t lie, he hasn’t hated _that _about this job either. And capping it off with an evening of getting to see all of them in their full dress uniforms sounds like a nice reward for his hard work.__

____

____

And if he manages to find one of those dress-blues clad boys to be dateless and willing, well that would be an even better reward for a night of hard work. 

Bucky grins to himself over that, dusts the sand off of his hands, and dumps two little piles out of his shoes. 

It’s flatware time—no rewards for event-planners who leave everyone hanging with no forks.


	2. Two

Steve throws a glance over his shoulder as they pass by the man on the beach, body used enough to making this run that his steps don’t falter even as he takes his eyes off what’s ahead of him for a moment. As they were coming up on him, Steve only noticed the guy because it was a little weird to see a man in a suit sprawled in the sand during the middle of the day along this stretch. Most civilians keep well clear of the Marines’ end of the beach, nervous about straying too close. 

As they passed directly by him he’d realized he recognized the sharp lines of the face, tilted up contentedly, sunshine falling in stark shadows and highlights along it. 

Steve keeps his eyes on him a fraction of a second too long, and he stumbles ever so slightly at the front of their formation, huffing out a soft breath. Maria jumps on him immediately with a crow of delight. 

“What’s this? Getting tired old man?” 

Steve shakes his head and knows he’s blushing, but refuses to look at her. She’ll only give him a worse time if she notices. He takes a moment to consider just how merciless her teasing would be if she’d noticed what had actually caused his (admittedly infinitesimal) stumble. 

“Didn’t you notice who was sitting over there?” he asks her, voice even despite coming up on the end of a fairly brisk five miler (the pace is always brisk when Steve’s in front). 

Maria frowns, shooting a look back over her shoulder. “That guy? No, who was it?”

Steve suppresses a small smile. To anyone who doesn't know Maria, it would have seemed like a dumb idea to point out the very thing that you hoped would go unnoticed. But Steve _does _know Maria—and well—and he knows that she’s now going to be absolutely consumed with shame that she hadn’t picked Barnes out as they’d gone past. Sloppy.__

__“He’s the Colonel’s event contractor. Must’ve just finished up inside,” he nods toward the looming walls of the base ahead of them._ _

__Maria’s frown deepens. “Oh,” she says, with a sour note._ _

__“Wooow Hill, I’m disappointed. Figured you for the type to clock someone like that at a hundred yards out, much less when you practically run over the guy's feet…”_ _

__Maria jabs a sharp elbow aimed at Steve’s ribs, which he dodges handily. He also knows her well enough to know her go-to annoyance moves. She sticks out her tongue at him instead._ _

__“Anyway you know what that means don’t you?”_ _

__She shoots him a glare, waiting for another punchline as their feet continue their rhythmic hits in the soft sand._ _

__“Means Phillips is going to be in an extra special mood just for you, Hill.”_ _

__Maria lets out a pained groan. “God I forgot.”_ _

__“The things you have to sacrifice for that proximity to power, am I right?”_ _

__“Shut the hell up Rogers, you’d ride that desk all the way to the top if they’d offered it to you instead of me…”_ _

__“Oh-ho! It’s like that? Well I guess you gotta take those tough breaks the rest of us can’t handle then huh.”_ _

__Steve grins, no heat behind the familiar taunts. Maria is a hell of an officer, and getting the spot as Phillips aide was a big get that she’d deserved. He isn’t jealous. Well, not _really _.___ _

____Steve’s career isn’t pointed in too bad a direction at this point. His job just doesn’t happen to involve interacting with civilian contractors. Which is fine. Civilian contractors usually put the already choleric Colonel into a real mood. So it’s for the best. Probably._ _ _ _

____They’ve now passed through the big sliding security gates onto the base and as they come to a halt a few of the others stop to check their time on watches and count heart rates. Steve can’t help but dart a glance over his shoulder down the glittering beach._ _ _ _

____This time, unfortunately, Maria does notice. Because she really is the kind of officer to clock a look like that from a hundred yards out, more's the pity for him._ _ _ _

____To his surprise though, she doesn’t jump on him, just give him a long _look_ , forearms resting on her knees as she catches her breath. ___ _

______At last she straightens up, cracking her back, and says “Uh- _huh_.”___ _ _ _

________Steve’s mouth twists, and he wishes he could take it back the second he says, “Uh-huh what?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Maria smirks, eyes following his previous glance up the beach. “Just uh-huh. Uh-huh you aren’t a sly as you think Rogers.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He’s blushing again, and he hopes that to anyone else around them it just looks like flush from the run. Maria knows him better than that though, and she proves it by punching him on the arm—hard. Because Maria Hill doesn’t pull her punches. But there’s a grin on her face._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“You dog! Phillips’ pet-project manager!”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Steve looks around embarrassed, though nobody is paying them any attention. It’s a familiar enough scene to be unremarkable. And if anyone were looking too keen, Maria would glare at them until they went away. Still he can feel that even the tips of his ears have turned pink at this point._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Would you please keep it down? And dog nothing! I haven’t—we haven’t—there’s not—there’s nothing,” he ends lamely, shrugging._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Maria drops the self-satisfied grin she was wearing. “Come on Rogers, you’re not gonna tell me you like someone enough to trip on a fresh low-tide stretch of beach and haven’t even talked to him?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Shit.” Steve says, “I kinda thought I distracted you from that.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Yeah I kinda thought you thought that. But for real, what’s the problem? I’ve seen the guy’s shoes, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got at least a 70% chance he bats for your team. I am rarely wrong with my footwear-based gaydar.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Steve rolls his eyes. “You absolutely tried to hit on me the first time we met.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Maria shakes her head, undeterred. “No, that’s different. All of us were in combat boots! It clouds my senses! It’s a _footwear_ based system Steve. Besides,” she looks up at him and grins again, slapping him lightly on the cheek “fucking look at you. It was worth even a 10% shot. Baby-fuckin-blues.” ___ _ _ _ _ _

__________This time it’s Steve who hooks out a punch, connecting squarely with Maria’s arm. She gives a little yelp, but doesn’t stop smiling. The fastest way to piss off Maria Hill is to pull _your_ punches. ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________She sobers, and the look she gives Steve is wry. “That’s also why you’re dumb as shit for not giving it a shot. Man, what’s the worst that could happen?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“Uh…he says no?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“Exactly!” Maria says, like she just won the argument._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“But that…that’s bad!”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________She levels her dark gaze at him, and suddenly Steve feels like a boot again._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“Steven Grant Rogers—”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“oh no…”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“ _Steven Grant Rogers_. Are you a Captain in the United States Marine Corps?”___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“Yes ma’am.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“Have you not once, not twice, but three times been deployed in an active war-zone?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“yes, but—”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“And have you in those war zones in fact commanded men and sustained bodily harm in the course of carrying out your duty to your country?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“okay, that was—”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“And you’re telling me that the _worst thing_ that can happen in your mind is getting turned down for a date and you’re _serious_?”_____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________Steve stays silent a moment, but she seems to be done making her point. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times trying to justify the fact that somehow yes it _does_ feel like the worst thing that could happen and he _hates_ asking for dates and it's easier just to hang out with her and Sam and his dog which is probably why he hasn’t been out with anyone since his last tour…_____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________He doesn’t say anything. The smug look on Maria’s face says she got it all anyway._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________“Come on buddy,” she says, slapping him on the back and turning away from the gates. “I’ll buy you a coffee before we go back in. Phillips is always a special joy after Barnes leaves.” She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “He must be something.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________“Yeah,” Steve agrees, not bothering to keep the slightly wistful note out of his voice. “Must be.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	3. Three

“Thought this might help with your problem, sir.” Bucky says, sliding the torn half sheet of paper across the table toward where Phillips sits looking dour. 

The line between his eyebrows grows inconceivably deeper. “Barnes, this better not be what I think it is.” 

Bucky grins as wide as his mouth will go, he’s that pleased with himself. “Oh I think it’s exactly what you think it is.” 

Phillips, seeming to be compelled by forces beyond his control, picks up the paper in a jerky motion. Bucky can see his own spiky handwriting through the page, and gives a little hum of happiness over the helpful list he made. _1\. Kiss from a Rose (Seal), 2. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston), 3. Don’t Mean a Thing If it Ain’t Got That Swing (Duke Ellington)..._

__“I particularly think you’d enjoy one of the Prince selections,” Bucky breaks in, “unless you’re more of a waltz guy?”_ _

__Colonel Phillips is looking at the list like it’s Medusa’s head and it has already turned him to stone. Actually, it’s starting to make Bucky a little nervous._ _

__“Uh, sir?”_ _

__The Colonel doesn’t say anything, just drops the list from stiff hands and slumps back in his chair._ _

__“Oh…” Bucky says, concerned, “oh no. Uh, Colonel Phillips? Do you want some water? Or coffee?” No response. “Some of that scotch?” he asks, getting nervous. “I’ll uh…I’ll get some…something.”_ _

__Bucky sidles away from the table, biting his lip, and sticks his head out the conference room door. The outer office where the Colonel’s staff works is largely empty, as it seems like a lot of them go out for PT in the afternoons. The brown haired girl—Captain Hill—isn’t at her desk anyway, and she was who he was hoping for. She has that look of somebody who can handle anything and not blink twice._ _

__He’s starting to feel a little panicky (surely he couldn’t have given Phillips a stroke could he?) when one of the wood paneled side doors creaks open._ _

__“Oh thank god!” Bucky fairly shouts before registering who has even entered._ _

__A pair of slightly perplexed, shockingly bright blue eyes meet his. _Shit, of course it would be_ , Bucky spares just enough time to think. __

____“Sorry,” says the other man, looking bemusedly around the empty office, “can I—help you with something?”_ _ _ _

____Bucky considers backtracking. But he may have just murdered this man’s commanding officer with some ill-advised teasing, so it doesn’t seem like the time to get bashful._ _ _ _

____“Yeah pal, I think I may have uh…broken Colonel Phillips.” The other man raises an eyebrow, and Bucky continues in a rush. “Any chance you can make some coffee or something?”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah…” says Blue-Eyes, slowly, his expression dubious. “Yeah I can do that. Everything okay in there?”_ _ _ _

____Bucky rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “Um. Probably.”_ _ _ _

____A hoarse voice from the conference room makes both Bucky and the other man jump._ _ _ _

____“Just bring the goddamned coffee, Rogers,” Colonel Phillips calls._ _ _ _

____“Sir!” says Rogers, looking a bit more at ease. Which is funny, because most people Bucky’s seen on the receiving end of that tone from Phillips get pretty wound up. But Bucky figures the guy is just glad he isn’t about to have to take down some civilian for...lethal shenanigans. Or whatever it might’ve been called if fatal. Rogers has already turned on his heel toward another one of the doors, presumably in the direction of the coffee pot._ _ _ _

____Bucky spins back to the conference room, putting his hands on his hips as if about to scold a naughty child._ _ _ _

____“ _Sir _.” He intones. He barely keeps himself from tapping his toe. “Don’t you think that was a little dramatic for a man of your age and rank?”___ _ _ _

______Phillips looks up at him darkly. “ _Dancing _Barnes. Goddamned dancing. That’s what this rank has brought me to.”___ _ _ _ _ _

________Bucky huffs out a laugh, feeling a little more sympathetic than he was a few moments back. “It really bugs you?” he pauses, delicately, “you know, those songs are a joke right? We can make it something real easy for you… _As Time Goes By_ maybe, it’s short and you don’t have to do a lot of footwork. Nobody is expecting Fred Astaire out there—”___ _ _ _ _ _

__________Phillips groans, scrubbing a hand over his weathered face as Bucky looks down at him in worry, afraid he’ll go catatonic again. Then, quicker than a man getting on in his years should be able to, he snaps out a hand and grabs Bucky’s wrist pulling him closer to his chair._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Barnes. I swear to god almighty, if you figure out a way to get me out of this I’ll—I’ll—”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“You’ll what?” asks Bucky with raised eyebrows, unable to keep a little of his amusement out of his tone. Phillips lets go of his wrist and slumps back again in his conference chair._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“I’ll owe you a favor.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Bucky thinks about it. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the offer—something that Colonel Phillips says like he means it. Or maybe it’s the fact that all joking aside he can see that the idea of opening the dancing at the ball gives him true distress._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Either way, Bucky can’t help but patting the older man on the shoulder and saying, “okay. I’ll see what I can do.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Phillips’ eyes fly open in surprise, and he opens his mouth to say something when he’s interrupted by the reappearance of Rogers. Bucky flicks his eyes to the insignia on his lapels and amends—Captain Rogers. Cap. Bucky can feel his lips curving up at that despite his best efforts. He likes the sound of it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Captain Rogers moves with an efficient conservation of motion, strides long and clean, elbows tucked to his side as he manages three mugs of coffee between two hands._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Colonel,” he says, setting one on the desk in front of Phillips._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________He turns to Bucky to hand him the other, and Bucky is momentarily caught in the snare of gazing at the man’s long, strong fingers wrapped around the chipped ceramic handle._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Rogers,” Phillips voice breaks in, and he waves a weary hand at Bucky, “this is Barnes, civilian contract to set up the ball this year.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Bucky grins at Captain Rogers, his winning smile that he’s found to be useful in landing contracts and charming people’s moms. He holds out a hand to shake, keeping his eyes locked on those cornflower blues as the other man reaches out to take it. Nothing like a solid handshake to make a good impression, Bucky thinks. Though he’s happy also that he’s wearing his slim-cut grey suit today. He looks good in this suit._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“It’s Bucky,” he says, as Captain Rogers shakes his hand. “Bucky Barnes. But I don’t think I could get used to answering to my last name for anyone but this guy,” he says, jerking his head to indicate the Colonel, who huffs at him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Nice to meet you—Bucky. It’s uh—Steve. Steve Rogers.” A small smile creeps over his face and Bucky simultaneously loves and hates how he can for some reason feel it in his toes, his fingers tingly slightly against Rogers’—Steve’s—palm. Steve adds, “although I’m pretty much used to only answering to last name in this line of work.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Ah well,” Bucky says, much more casually and confidently than he feels, “civilian perk is I don’t have to jump all those military hoops. I like Steve.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________He isn’t sure if he’s imagining the pink blush peeking over the top of Steve’s collar. Oh no, he thinks. That’s fuckin adorable. Suddenly he remembers to take his hand back, and he’s not sure if he had been holding onto Steve’s handshake for like, a little bit too long or way too long. Steve is definitely blushing. It’s a lot to take in._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Bucky turns brightly to Colonel Phillips, still glowering over his coffee from the conference chair, and says with brash charm, “Isn’t that right Colonel? Say—maybe I could drop this Colonel business and just call you Chester?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________He is pretty sure he doesn’t imagine the small, delighted-but-horrified gasp that Steve smothers, and Bucky thinks that the joke is worth it even if he’s murdered right here and now just to have heard that sound from him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Colonel Phillips leans forward, menacing, and rises from his chair._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Barnes,” he begins in a slightly strangled tone. “We’re going to need to reschedule this meeting. Get yourself on my calendar after enough days that I don’t want so much to kill you.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________He heads for the door. “I need to shoot something now. Preferably it will be a little piece of paper with several rings printed on it, but I can’t make any guarantees so you’d better get out of my sight.” He turns, stiff, and jerks his head. “Rogers, you’re on me. Find me a jeep.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Rogers—Steve—spares a brief glance at Bucky as he snaps a salute (and okay, yes, Bucky can see the difference between the one he tried the other day and Steve’s. But Steve also seems like the kinda guy who would always do that perfectly even when nobody cared so it isn’t really a fair comparison…)._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Barnes,” Steve says with a sharp nod, turning to follow Phillips out._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Cap,” Bucky shoots back. His smirk deepens when Steve does a double take at the nickname, his mouth dropping open a little as if he wants to comment. But Steve is obviously a bright guy who knows better than to keep an XO in a serious mood waiting, and he hurries out._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Camo should _not _be that flattering on anybody, Bucky thinks, admiring the retreat.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________Then both the men are gone, leaving Bucky leaning against a highly polished conference table and wondering if there’s any way that this hasn’t been the fucking weirdest day he’s ever had on this job._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	4. Four

Steve thinks he is doing a very creditable job at keeping a bank expression as he drives the Colonel over to the shooting range. In fact, Steve would generally have graded himself high on keeping his thoughts to himself (minus his pesky tendency to blush). 

Yet they haven’t gotten far when Phillips barks over, “you think all of that was funny, Rogers?” 

“No, sir!” Steve replies, keeping his eyes on the road, and letting the smile he hadn’t felt creep up fall from his face. Damn, his face had gone unblank without his permission. 

“Well it was.” Phillips snorts. “That kid's got nerve. But I’ll tell you, Rogers,” he turns to Steve and wags an emphatic finger at him, “I’ll tell you as a current commanding officer to a future one—you give a guy like that an inch and he’ll climb all over you.”

Steve chokes. He turns it into a cough as quick as he can, but Steve knows—he just knows—that his face had gone immediately into a flaming shade of red. _Calm the fuck down Steve_ , he chides himself. 

“Yes, sir.” He manages. He can’t bring himself to look at the Colonel to see if he’s noticed Steve’s reaction to his choice of phrasing. He doesn’t need to. After a moment of silence in which the only noise is the drone of the jeep, Colonel Phillips lets out a great, braying guffaw and slaps his knee. 

“I’ll be damned! Well well now that’s a horse of a different color.” 

Steve clenches his teeth shut, praying he’s somehow wandered into some terrible dream. 

“So what’s the problem Rogers?” The colonel asks, his words too close for comfort to the same thing Maria asked him the other day. 

“Problem, sir?” Steve hopes playing dumb to Phillips will work better for him than it had with Maria. She hasn’t shut up about it since, and it ruined poker night, which is generally one of his favorite weekly occurrences. She’d gotten Sam involved too which has only made it worse. 

“Right, right, none of my business,” Phillips says, surprising Steve into looking over at the passenger side. 

“Sir?”

“Nah none of my business Captain. Just thought I might uh…do you a favor…” he trails off. 

Steve lets him. That is not a trail he is excited to follow his XO down. 

The colonel releases Steve from accompanying him once they reach the practice rifle range, and Steve tells himself that he is not fleeing when he takes the out. 

***

Maria finds everything about the entire exchange to be hilarious. 

Steve knew she would. 

They’re at their favorite bar which is only a few blocks up from the base. They’re far from the only Marines who frequent it—Marines getting off work probably keep this place in business—but Steve likes to think they’re favorites. Most of the waitresses know them at this point, and they somehow always manage to get a booth even when other high-and-tights are getting turned out to the picnic tables. 

Maria lets out a wail of laughter that draws the attention of several people at the bar, and Steve shushes her, although he’s laughing too and can’t quite make the noise sound commanding. 

“And then you just left him at the gun range and went back to work?” she asks, wiping her streaming eyes as Steve picks embarrassedly at the label of his beer bottle. 

“Well…yeah.” He chuckles a little. If it weren’t his life he could see how it was a little funny. Maybe. 

“Ohhh Steve!” Maria says, shoulders shaking. She leans back against the booth and puts a hand to her heart. “I just hate having to say I told you so but…tell me,” she opens her eyes and locks his gaze, “does this or does this not seem far worse to you than if you’d just introduced yourself to the guy out in the hallway and asked him out?” 

Steve twists his mouth up and looks down at the bottle in his hand again. “Well…yeah I guess now that you mention it.” 

Maria cackles again, then sobers. “Okay but despite my overwhelming rightness about this, you know all is not lost right?”

He gives her a look. 

“I’m serious!” 

“But it was so embarrassing! Everything about it! I’m thinking of requesting an early combat assignment just so I never ever have to come to your offices again.” He’s half joking. 

Maria knows exactly how much of it isn’t a joke, and she returns his look. “You are the dumbest smart guy I’ve ever met.” 

“Gee thanks.” 

“For real Steve.” And despite himself, having her use his first name makes him stop peeling the beer label and listen to her. “Embarrassing is in the eye of the beholder. How many chick flicks have you seen that start with totally humiliating run-ins? It’s called a fuckin’ meet-cute you dork!” 

“Maria,” Steve says, rolling his eyes, “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that just because I’m into men does not mean that I was ever a teenage girl—” the sentence turns into a yelp as she kicks him under the table. 

“I’m just saying,” she says with a dignity undeserved by a woman who’s just ended an argument by kicking her opponent, “nothing about that story sounds like he wasn’t into it. In fact it sounds a lot like he definitely was. He poked a bear for you. It was a dumb as shit way to show off but it still sounds like showing off to me.” 

Steve clears his throat. “I hadn’t really thought of it like that.” 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you bring three coffee mugs in the first place? You were hoping they’d ask you to hang out in their party planning committee?”

“I—I didn’t even think about it.” Steve laughs, sheepish, “Yep. Yeah I guess I was hoping that getting ordered to bring life-saving coffee would get me invited to chat. God that’s the most embarrassing part yet! Why did you even force me to realize how embarrassing that part is?”

“I just have a feeling that I’m not the only one who picked up on that detail. You aren’t as subtle as you think, Rogers.” 

“Yeah pretty sure Phillips got my number but good today.” 

“Uh-huh,” Maria says, taking a long pull of her beer and bringing the bottle down with a thunk, a glint of triumph in her eye. “Well Phillips isn’t exactly who was supposed to end up with your number…but it’s a step in the right direction.”


	5. Five

“So…why do you think he brought three coffees in in the first place?”

Bucky stops dead in his third round of analysis of the whole interaction and gives Nat a blank stare. 

“You know what? I didn’t even think about it.” 

“I think he was hoping you guys’d let him stick around after he’d given Phillips mouth to mouth or whatever.” She takes a sip of martini. Never let it be said that Natasha doesn’t know how to let a moment land. 

“Fuck,” Bucky says. “You’re totally right.” 

“I know,” Nat agrees with a bored tone. 

Her eyes flick behind him as she takes another drink, and Bucky knows she’s checking up on the exits and whoever it was who had just entered the restaurant. It’s why they always have to sit in the corner of the room where nobody can come up behind them. Bucky has never been exactly clear on what Nat’s job is, but it involves wearing extremely well-tailored pencil dresses and never letting anyone sneak up on you while you’re eating your steak. 

“So what are you gonna do about it?” she asks, breaking Bucky’s train of thought. 

“Huh?”

“I said what are you gonna do about it, James?”

He makes a strangled noise at his first name. “Please don’t. And I don’t know, what can I?”

She looks at him like he’s gone suddenly simple. “Um. Ask him out?”

Bucky looks away, out of the window next to them and across the lights of downtown spread underneath them, and the dark hulk of the ocean beyond. He’s hedging and Nat knows it, and Bucky knows she knows it. She lets him avoid her eyes for a couple of quiet moments as she cuts a few bites of steak and scans the room again. But she doesn’t let it hang for long. 

“Come on then, Buck. What. Are. You. Gonna. Do?” she arches an eyebrow at him. “I don’t get why this is such a big thing for you—you don’t usually have a hard time with the asking out. It’s more the keeping out that’s been your issue.” 

That smarts a little bit and Bucky scrunches his nose at her. “Ouch.” 

“Sorry,” she says in an even voice. He can’t for the life of him tell if she actually is. 

He sighs, looking back down at his plate, frowning at his half-eaten steak. When they’d become friends in college, these weekly dinners had consisted of going to the dining commons and stuffing as much buffet pizza into their pockets to sneak out as they could. Man how times have changed. Because the other thing he guesses he knows about Natasha’s job is that when it’s her week to buy dinner these days, they end up eating in highrise-rooftop steakhouses. When it’s his turn they usually do bad Chinese at his place. But lucky for him Nat doesn’t seem to notice the difference. It’s part of her unique charm—she’s both impossible to impress and uninterested in being around people who try. 

“Nah,” he says, giving her a dry look, “no apologies for rightness, right?” 

It’s an old mantra between them. 

“I dunno Nat. I’ve made a lotta starts and not much more lately. Guess I’m tired enough that I’m not sure I want to put in the startup cost for just another three month thing, ya know?”

She gives him a withering glare over the top of her martini glass, then looks away across the room again. She’s got someone in her sights now—somebody she’s decided is suspicious. He wishes his back weren’t to them—his favorite thing is watching when some tough guy tries to stare Nat down after she’s made eye contact with him, seeing the dude falter and eventually shrivel up at the steady “I can easily make you disappear” glint she gets. 

“Yeah you’re right,” she says, “guess it’s time to pack it in and check the library for books on how to cope with dying alone.” 

“Natasha!”

“What?” she demands, “you honestly wanna tell me that wasn’t the most self-defeating thing you’ve said this month? If you don’t want to ask the guy out because you think he’s uptight or too ‘military’ or whatever, that’s fine. But if you want to ask him and you don’t because you’ve already doomed yourself to failure that’s you just choosing to fail without even trying. Just so you know.” 

Bucky huffs and stuffs an oversized bite of steak into his mouth, chewing it savagely for a minute. It’s satisfying in a primal way. Then he sighs and knocks his knee against hers under the table. 

“When’d you get so smart anyway?” he says around a cheekful of steak. 

“James, manners,” Nat says primly, and Bucky knocks her knee again slightly harder. She smiles, looking especially predatory and feline. He holds up his hands to preempt whatever retaliation she’s considering—it’s never worth escalating with Natasha. She has no sense of proportion. 

“Mea culpa.” 

“Yeah you better culpa, man.” She considers for a moment. “Anyway as much as I’d like to take credit for being smarter than you, which I most undoubtedly am, this feels like a conclusion you can and would reach on your own. But you know what else I think your problem is?”

“I am positive you’re going to tell me either way.” 

“You are your problem—too damn popular, too good-looking, too many options.” 

“I—” Bucky lets out a rare stutter, “um…thank you?”

“No, no thank you! It’s terrible, look what it’s doing to you! Turned you into a real ‘grass is always greener,’ ‘notch on my bedpost’ type asshole.” 

“Oh,” he says, shrugging, “yeah that feels more like what I was expecting.” 

“Yeah,” she says emphatically, jabbing her steak knife at him. Then her face softens. “Look, you know I think you’re just as great as you think you are, because you are that great. But you’re also kind of an dick. So I think, for what it’s worth, if this guy has you a little freaked out and off your game he sounds like somebody worth your time.” 

Bucky makes a whining sound in his throat. “I hate everything about everything you just said.” 

“Yeah that’s how you know you should listen. Personally I hope he turns you down flat, as I also think that is an experience you’d benefit from.” 

“Nat! Don’t put that into the universe! Take it back!” 

Natasha looks at him, and Bucky tries his very hardest not to blink or look away first even though he knows he’ll lose. Slowly she raises a hand to the window sill beside them, rapping her knuckles on it twice, not breaking her stare. 

“Knock on wood, I take it back. But the only way to truly break the curse is to ask him out.” 

“This conversation took an unfortunate turn somewhere.” 

Nat laughs, a bright, bell-like sound that’s always unexpected compared to her husky voice. 

“They always do seem to don’t they?” 

***

Bucky doesn’t even want to let his brain touch on most of what Nat flung at him about himself, and yes it’s mostly because he is pretty sure if he picks it up and examines it and thinks about it it will turn out to be even more right than it was when it first hit him. 

Of course avoidance only lasts for so long after he’s arrived back at his dark apartment and kicked off his shoes and belt, flinging himself facedown onto the couch cushions. He’s not used to it being so quiet. Usually Clint is around making a nuisance of himself, but he’s gone on some work retreat bonding shit. So Bucky has no one to distract him. Although if he’s realistic, Clint would almost definitely just say that everything Nat told him was right. But that’s not fair. It’s not fair taking sides in an argument when you’re trying to get in one of the two people’s pants and not the other. It skews the ability to judge the merits of both sides fairly. 

It’s a losing battle for him anyway, and he lets out a long muffled groan into the couch cushion. 

Okay, so yes maybe it is true that out of his series of failed attempts at relationships over the last couple years, he was the dumper and not the dumpee in all of them. And yes, maybe all of those people had been nice and whatever and he was the dick who had gotten bored of them. 

And yes, maybe he’s become a little bit of an asshole when it comes to dating. He just can’t help that he likes the thrill of getting someone’s number, asking for a dance and knowing they’ll say yes. 

He wonders if he’s an exceptionally vain person. It just seems like Natasha should be having this same issue—she racks up phone numbers and compliments and flattery at the same (okay probably way higher) rate than he does when they’re out. Why isn’t she running through dates and boyfriends and—he hesitates to use her word but finds it too accurate to avoid—options?

Ugh, she was right. It’s him. When had he turned into a dick? He definitely hadn’t always been or Nat and Clint wouldn’t have put up with him. 

He’d been a major dork in high school. Painfully consumed with the mental effort of not addressing his sexuality, mediocre at sports, embarrassingly earnest about the things he was interested in. He hadn’t been much cooler in college, though coming out had made him a lot more relaxed, with himself and everyone else. 

He guesses that’s about when Nat picked him up and taught him about what kind of shoes he should be wearing. Bless her. 

But this Bucky? The one everyone seems to want to take a bite of? He thinks that must be a much more recent Bucky. Starting his own business had been a major confidence boost. He’d started wearing suits for work even though he could totally get away with board shorts and flip-flops because, hello, California. He’d gotten a good haircut and started keeping a five o’clock shadow. 

So okay, maybe the problem is that Bucky had fallen a little in love with being fallen in love with. 

Wow. That sounded so much worse once he articulated it. 

And what about him? Had he not actually…felt anything for any of those people? He tries to think back in reverse order. And he’s horrified to find that the answer is…not really. They’d all been people who had seemed very interesting while they were drunk in the bars, and they’d all been very good-looking, the kind who was drawing the attention of multiple other people in said bar. But once he’d proven his point—to the bar or himself or to them or whatever—that he was the one who could close the deal, well the interest had kind of wrapped up too. 

“Go-od,” he says aloud into the empty apartment. 

Alright. Well. Is that what he wants? Because apparently he’s good at it. If he wants he can do away with part of him that’s an unconscious serial-monogamist and not bother with the second through eighthish dates and just do the picking up part. 

Only that sounds sad and terrible. Evidently the monogamist in him isn’t so unconscious. 

It’s just…Bucky’s mind flits to his parents laughing faces at either end of a scuffed dining room table and the full, messy, friendly house they raised him and his sisters in. It never really occurred to him that he wouldn’t have that eventually. 

Then for no reason his brain has removed the image of his parents, waving him down the street from the front step as he leaves some family dinner, and has replaced them with a quick glance from two bluer-than-blue eyes, framed in light smile lines. 

A challenge, that’s what Nat had called him. Which evidently is Bucky’s weakness…though he very much doubts she meant it as anything like the same thing he’s been chasing down. Plus, she’d also sort of cursed him with rejection which was just rude. 

He frowns and reaches out a hand to knock on the wooden coffee table, just in case. 

There’s something about the idea of Steve that is daunting in a way Bucky hasn’t felt in a long time. He’s not just the hottest guy at the bar (though he totally would be, he’s real good-looking). He’s a man of substance—young for a captain, holds himself like he’s not stopping there, decorated for service overseas (yeah Bucky might have gently poked around his publicly available record). He’s serious, a rising star. At the moment, Bucky just isn’t sure if a person of substance would want anything to do with him. He’s afraid maybe he’s handed off all of his own substance in exchange for being the prettiest guy at the bar who the hottest dude goes home with. 

Suddenly Bucky is way too tired to keep thinking about this. 

“Fuck you Nat,” he mumbles into the arm of the sofa. She’d started all of this, this— _introspection_. And it is very painful and he doesn’t appreciate it. Because she’d also fed it to him with three martinis and she knows what vodka does to him and now his skull hurts. 

Time for bed. 

If once the lights are out, and he’s flopped face first onto his pillows instead of the couch, his brain insists that he ruminate a while longer on the exact shape of Steve’s mouth as he tried not to laugh at Bucky teasing Phillips, or the size of his hands holding the coffee cups, or the stretch of green drab camo over his shoulders…

Well, he doesn’t exactly resist the urge.


	6. Six

Far from being true to his word that he’ll never be seen at the XO’s offices again, Steve spends the rest of the week pathetically lurking. 

The problem is, he hadn’t caught when Bucky had rescheduled his check-in meeting with Phillips. He could be back any time. And then what if _that_ time becomes their new weekly meeting time and Steve doesn’t know when it is and it’s only three weeks til the ball and then he’ll never be back and what if Steve never sees him again? God. 

Steve is far from certain he’ll work up the nerve to ask the event planner out in the next three weeks, but he is certain he definitely wants not to never see him again. 

However, the other problem is that Steve is not a naturally inconspicuous person. He’s pretty tall, even in a career field that skews taller than average. And thanks to being friends with Maria, lots of people around the headquarters know him and will say hi to him, by name, not even being chill and quiet about it. 

Which is why of course it’s only a matter of time into his lurking before he hears a braying voice chasing him into the copy room (where he’s making copies of…something…he’s pretty sure he could reasonably justify it if he had to). 

“Rogers! Get your ass in here.” Phillips voice carries even across a room full of people talking and rustling and typing. 

Steve cringes deeply (on the inside only, he’s pretty sure—well, hopes). 

He walks toward the Colonel’s door feeling like he’s making the march to the guillotine. Maria, in her cubicle outside the Colonel’s office, smirks up at him. 

“Captain Rogers,” she says, voice cool and not betraying any of the glee that is in her eyes. No one else would ever suspect what a brat she’s being—she looks as impeccably pressed and turned out as she always does on the job. “I believe the Colonel would like to see you. You can go straight in.” 

“Captain Hill,” Steve says with a professional nod, flipping her off down low where the rest of the office can’t see it. 

“Rogers,” Phillips drawls before Steve is all the way in the door, waving off his salute, “at ease.” 

The Colonel shoves away a stack of papers that had been in front of him so that he can lean forward and fold his hands on his desk, surveying Steve. 

“Captain, would you say that your team is at full preparedness for getting sent back into combat?”

“Sir, I would sir. Sharp and ready.”

Phillips nods. “Good, that’s good. But you know, I just ask because it seems like you’ve got some free time on your hands and runnin’ that team isn’t filling it up, so your guys—and ladies—really must be on top of their shit.” 

Steve’s face is a sunset, and he wishes the floor would swallow him. He’s not used to criticism—especially deserved criticism—and knowing that’s what’s coming makes him want to disappear. 

“Sir.” Is all he says. 

“Yeeeeah,” says Phillips, leaning back in his office chair. “Well in any case seems like you’ve got time to fill and I’m gonna fill it.” He pulls the papers back in front of him, taking his eyes off Steve’s bright red face before he adds, “don’t make plans tonight. You’re staying late. Now go on—get.” 

Steve falters, then recognizes the dismissal, snapping out a salute and a crisp “Sir!” 

Outside of the office he stops and replays the Colonel’s words. How was that not so much worse? He deserved for it to be so much worse. 

He pauses at Maria’s desk and raps quietly on the top of it, pulling her eyes from her computer screen. 

“I’m out tonight,” he says softly, jerking his head toward the door, “Phillips wants me.” 

“Bummer,” she says, mildly, looking back at her screen. It’s not that big of a deal, they hang out a lot. But then she pauses her typing and looks back at him again with a quizzical expression. 

“You said Phillips wants you here tonight?”

“Uh—yeah?”

“Re-heally? Okay.”

He waits for her to elaborate on that reaction, and she doesn’t. He decides not to ask. He’s pressed his luck enough for one morning. 

***

“Well if it isn’t the man with the plan, and what is your plan today?” Phillips drones at Bucky as he enters the conference room. 

He seems to be in a good mood. 

“Scratch that Barnes, I don’t really care,” he flaps a hand at Bucky to sit in his normal chair (leaving a respectful two empty ones between them), “seeing you twice in one week is stretching my very limited commitment to our relationship. I promised I’d check in with you once a week 'til this bullshit is done just to make sure you aren’t selling off tanks to buy champagne flutes or whatever the hell else but that’s about all I got for you.” 

“I uh—okay,” Bucky says. He’s a little off his game today. Hasn’t slept well this week. But it’s Friday afternoon, almost closing time around here, and this is his last hoop to jump through before the weekend and getting drunk with Clint. 

“In fact the only plan of yours I’m interested in hearing about is whether you’re gonna make good on our deal?”

Bucky brightens a bit. “Ah! Well sir, in that case I just have one question for you: do you think your wife loves you as much as I do?”

Phillips gives him a droopy, unamused glare. 

“Good!” Bucky says, grinning, “in that case I’m very sorry to hear that she rolled her ankle earlier and is going to have to stay off of it for the remainder of the evening—no dancing on doctor’s orders.”

Phillips raises an eyebrow at him, and Bucky is pretty sure that he almost, just almost cracks a smile. 

“Happy to help you flout a two-hundred year old tradition, sir. And I’ll let Hess know he’s up to bat.” Hess is Phillips second in command, and Bucky has a feeling he’s actually really going to enjoy the pomp and circumstance of opening the ball’s first dance. 

Bucky isn’t sure what response he’s hoping for from Phillips—effusive praise and swearing eternal gratitude maybe—but it isn’t for him to look away from Bucky and shout at the door of the conference room—

“Hill!” 

Captain Hill sticks her head in, face expectant. 

“Tell Rogers to get his ass up here. I’m sure he’s around somewhere.” 

“Sir.” Hill’s face disappears around the door, leaving Bucky staring in open-mouthed confusion at the Colonel. 

“Promised you a favor didn’t I?” 

Bucky falters. “I—yeah—but I thought you meant like, getting me the contract for next year or something—”

“Got no control over that Barnes, probably won’t even be XO here come next year so that’ll all be on your talent. Instead you’re gonna get—Rogers!” the last word is barked out and clearly not meant for Bucky, and Bucky knows who has just entered the conference room and can’t quite bring himself to look over—not just yet—because he’s desperately trying to regain his composure here but damn he wasn’t prepared for this…

“Rogers, you clear your evening for me?” Phillips asks him. 

“Yes sir!” Steve responds, and the small part of Bucky’s brain that isn’t scrambling for what to do with his hands—what does he normally do with his hands?—notes that Steve’s stance is significantly more formal than the other day. He wonders if Phillips gave him shit about it or something. 

“Good. Then you take Barnes here and go work out the rest of whatever shit he needs me to sign off on, because I don’t give a good goddamn about any of it and I no longer care to pretend to.” He waves a hand of dismissal at both of them, and for the moment they are united in the uncertain look they dart at each other. 

“Go on! I don’t want to hear another damn thing about color schemes or appetizers! Rogers, just make sure he’s not spending the Marine Corps’ whole annual budget on this shit and I’ll sign whatever you put in front of me come Monday to make it happen.” 

“I—yes sir!” Steve recovers before Bucky does, giving one of his textbook perfect salutes. 

“Right,” says the colonel, looking for all the world like he’s halfway to forgetting entirely about their existence as he shuffles his file folders. But he adds, “I don’t care if you stay on base as long as it gets done somewhere—have at it.” 

Bucky presses his lips into a tight line, feeling as if he’s suddenly catching up. Is the colonel— _Colonel Phillips_ —seriously sending him and Captain Steve Rogers out on a date right now?

More importantly, does Captain Steve Rogers have any clue that he’s being sent out on a date? Because if he does that’s…something. And if he doesn’t—well, Bucky is going to have a conversation with Phillips about what constitutes a favor and what constitutes just a terrible idea all around. 

But he’s really, really hoping it’s the former.


	7. Seven

Steve is extremely glad, not for the first time in his life, for the strict military training that means he doesn’t have to know what to be doing with his body in this exact moment. Muscle memory has his back (ramrod straight, incidentally) even as his brain and higher functions are letting him down. He turns on his heel to leave, hearing Phillips dismissal, then realizes halfway out that Bucky isn’t running on the same training as him. 

He spins around, intending to make sure Barnes has followed him, and finds that the event planner had in fact followed directly on his heels and therefore brings them to a near collision. 

“Ah—sorry!” Steve says, instinctively reaching out a hand to steady Bucky by the shoulder, and then snatching it back as if he’s been burned, “sorry!” he repeats for no good reason. 

Bucky’s brow is furrowed and he chewing slightly on his lower lip. Steve doesn’t know how to interpret the look at all. Is he pissed at Colonel Phillips sudden and verifiably insane desire to play matchmaker? Is he totally embarrassed and uninterested and unsure of how to get out of it? What the hell Phillips! Steve allows himself to think. Maybe he legitimately had a stroke the other day. 

Then Bucky looks up at him, and the intense, thoughtful look is replaced by the megawatt smile that Steve has seen him turn on a couple of times when he thinks he’s losing an argument with Phillips. He hates that it works on him. He would literally do anything Bucky asked at this exact moment. Which is exactly what that purposeful flash of teeth and twinkling eye is meant to do—fuck, Steve’s in trouble. 

“So Cap,” Bucky says, a laugh in his voice, “your place or mine?”

And Steve so so wants to be able to banter something back but instead it feels a little bit like he has forgotten how to breathe and instead he doesn’t say anything and he just stares like an idiot. 

Bucky’s face softens a little bit, easing up on The Smile just enough that Steve feels like he can get a breath in, and he’s grateful for a reprieve even as he thinks he’d be kind of okay with just suffocating to death right here. Death by handsomeness. 

“I mean, uh—do you wanna stick around here? We can probably find an empty meeting room or something if you have stuff you need to stay on base for…” Bucky trails off, expectant. 

Steve isn’t sure if his tone is a little bit less brassy because he’s taking pity on Steve’s awkwardness…or if it’s just possible that he isn’t quite as self-assured in this moment as he seems. 

And if he isn’t, what does that mean? Is he nervous because…of Steve?

The possibility gives him just enough of an injection of courage to relax his shoulders, try out a (totally chill, very low-key) smile, and say, 

“Nope, I think you’re my last assignment for the day. Wanna grab a beer?”

 

Steve has enough presence of mind to ask Bucky to wait while he changes into his civies. He’s not sure if the gate guard would’ve commented or let him walk off in his uniform, only to get harassed and reprimanded for ending up in it at a bar somewhere before he’d ever realized. Muscle memory, he thinks again. Thank god. 

He’s also glad he brought a decent pair of jeans and an at least not totally disgusting t-shirt to change into after work today—sometimes he just goes home in gym shorts and whatever Marine Corps recruiting tee he has on hand since it’s like, a ten minute drive and all he plans to do is go straight home. 

But tonight was supposed to be dinner at the pub with Maria and Sam and—oh no. The thought brings him up short. He’s been unconsciously planning on just taking Bucky to the pub, because it’s close and easy and as much like homefield advantage as he was going to get here, but of course he realizes now that Maria and Sam will be there already having the dinner he was supposed to be at. Oh god. That was almost a huge, huge mistake. 

Bucky is walking quietly by his side as they approach the security gates that will dump them out into the city, and Steve doesn’t want to stare, so he can only gauge the other man’s expression by quick glances from the corner of his eye. He hasn’t resumed that glower he’d had earlier, but the super-charming-persuader grin is gone too. He looks pensive, both hands stuffed in his pockets. 

Steve gives a quick salute to the gate guard in response to the man’s greeting, and then they’re out on the sidewalk, stretching down along the beach front. 

“So, you got a place in mind?” he asks, shooting for a friendly tone. It sort of works. He knows one of his problems is that he sounds really stiff when he’s nervous, and people think he’s being aloof instead of the real problem which is that he’s kind of awkward. 

“Oh—” Bucky says, sounding as if he’s coming back from some very distant thoughts, “sure, yeah let me see. You like the Firehouse? Or uh—Slaters? Fox and Hound?”

Steve shakes his head, shamefacedly. “Honestly I’ve never been to a single one of those. I’m…kind of a creature of habit. Don’t get out trying new stuff that often.”

Bucky gives him a lopsided smile that makes his stomach drop a little. “Creature of habit seems like it’d be a plus in your chosen career I guess.” 

Steve ducks his head, trying very hard not to look too long. “Hah, yeah something like that. Only been stationed here about a year…but I guess that’s kind of a while not to know anything about the town, huh?”

Bucky shrugs, and Steve’s struck by the fluidity of the motion. 

“I dunno man, I been here my whole life so I don’t really know what I’d know about a place in one year.” He frowns, and Steve wonders what he’s thinking before the expression clears. 

“Anyway, I got you. Come on.” 

He nods his head up the street and gestures for Steve to follow him. Steve does gladly. 

***

The bar Bucky picks is nice, one of his favorites, though he suspects it’s a little more hipster than Steve would’ve walked into if he’d just passed on the street. It admittedly does serve more than one kind of specialty variation on a Moscow mule, but it’s not anywhere near the heights of hipsterdom the truly hip places in this city reach. The menu isn’t too fussy, and Bucky feels that having a bunch of plants growing in the walls isn’t specifically a bad thing. 

He slides into the booth across from Steve, unreasonably glad they aren’t at one of the open tables in the center of the place. 

Bucky needs to step up his game, he knows. He was way too quiet as they walked here. It’s just that Steve’s civilian casual look is…a lot. It’s just jeans and a t-shirt but damn. They fit him. Like, really well. Well, he muses, it’s possible that _someone_ might say that Steve has bought a t-shirt that is one size smaller than it could be. But Bucky is not that someone. 

He’d thought Steve was hot in his utility uniform, but this t-shirt is revealing details of Steve’s upper-body muscle tone that should probably be illegal. 

Bucky catches himself lingering a little too long on the shifting muscle of Steve’s arm as he’s setting his bag on the bench next to him, and makes himself drag his eyes away. 

_Menu_ —that’s a helpful place for roving eyes to look. He grabs the drink menu and buries his nose in it. Be more normal he commands himself. Wasn’t he just obsessing about how he’s so good at dating that it’s a problem? He snorts softly at the thought. Welcome to a new week, asshole. 

__He looks up and finds Steve’s eyes on him, an unreadable look on his face. He smiles when Bucky makes eye contact, and his face when he smiles is so sweet and open that Bucky’s heart thuds and his mouth decides to ignore any kind of signals from his brain and he blurts,_ _

__“So is this a—” his brain manages to wrench the wheel back from his lips in time to cut the sentence off before he says the D word, and then he hears Steve finishing the sentence for him,_ _

__“—date?” Steve says, holding Bucky’s gaze. His mouth quirks up at the corners, and he does that adorable head duck he’d done earlier before coming back to meet his eyes again. “Yeah—yeah I kind of think it is.”_ _

__Bucky’s mouth is dry. “Oh.”_ _

__“You okay with that?” Steve asks, tone very even. So even that Bucky thinks he might care just as much about the answer as Bucky does._ _

__“Yeah I—I think I am. You?”_ _

__Steve’s smile widens, and to Bucky’s internal anguish there’s a blush spreading across his cheekbones as well._ _

__“Yeah I’m good.”_ _

__They hold each other’s eyes for another dozen heartbeats, and then Bucky’s giving in to an inescapable grin and he laughs._ _

__“Well well well. I think I owe ole Chester some kind of thank-you note or something.”_ _

__And then something magical happens, and Steve’s entire face changes as he bursts into laughter, the kind that crinkles his eyes and his nose and the lines around his mouth and he’s closing his eyes and brings a hand to his chest because he’s laughing so hard he can’t quite catch a breath._ _

__And Bucky did that._ _

__He absolutely must make it happen again as soon as humanly possible. He grins as Steve gets ahold of himself._ _

__“Ch-Chester—” he chokes out at last, wiping his eyes, “you know I’m starting to think you have a real death wish. What if I’m a spy working for Phillips and I reported back you called him that again? I saw him on that rifle range. He can and will kill you.”_ _

__“Oh pshaw!” Bucky chuckles, “he loves me!”_ _

__Steve looks him up and down and the look makes Bucky’s blood run cold for a moment. They’re on a date. A for-reals, both of them know and totally are down type date._ _

__“Well.” Steve says, letting the word and the look hang for a moment. “How about that drink?”_ _

__

__Bucky lets out a little giggle at his reflection as he leans to wash his hands in the bathroom sink. He almost says “you’re drunk!” to the mirror version of himself, but manages to hold it in, pressing his lips together. Which is how he knows that while he may be tipsy, he’s not all the way gone yet. He literally physically cannot keep from talking to himself in the mirror when he’s drunk, it’s how he can always gauge his intoxication level at parties. If the comments stay on the inside he’s still only in tipsy territory._ _

__He cannot, however, make the same assessment of Steve._ _

__The look on the other man’s face when he returns to their booth startles another barely suppressed laugh out of him. Steve’s face looks just like those cartoons of drunk people with the wobbly goofy mouth and X’s for eyes. Steve is absolutely roaring drunk._ _

__Which means that Steve is a total lightweight. Which is unexpected and hilarious._ _

__“Bucky!” he says with delight as Bucky signs their tab. Bucky is proud of himself for paying, because he’s a fucking gentleman. Also Steve is too sauced to notice._ _

__“Alright big guy, time to get you to bed.”_ _

__“Ohhhh no!” Steve slurs a little, raising a finger and pointing it at him, “how dare you think I am that kind of date? I am a third date kind of lady—” he hiccups on the word lady, and looks at Bucky with confusion. “Am I drunk?”_ _

__Bucky laughs again and reaches down a hand to pull him up from the bench. “You certainly are, Cap.” Ooph. It is not that easy lifting Steve. Bucky really hopes he’s not going to have to get him anywhere too far…he’s been neglecting the gym too much lately to feel very confident about his strength stamina._ _

__“Oh no,” Steve says again, vaguely, slinging an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, “I’m Drunk Steve. Sorry.”_ _

__He turns his face to Bucky’s shoulder as Bucky tugs him against his hip, trying to get Steve’s bag as well. Then Steve’s running his cheek over Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky can feel his breath on his neck and he’s temporarily frozen as Steve’s nose brushes below his ear._ _

__“Don’t be sorry,” Bucky says, aiming for light and falling way off the mark, his voice coming out husky and strained. He clears his throat._ _

__He is not going to let himself get distracted by that. He is dead set on being a good date, not a slutty lush like he apparently normally is. It’s why he limited his drinks, although apparently he should’ve been cutting Steve off as well. Exactly how many had the guy had? Two and a beer. Bucky is pretty sure that this six-foot-two Adonis has been felled by exactly two rum and cokes and one IPA. Maybe there were two IPAs. Still._ _

__“Alright Drunk Steve, time to get you out of here. You live nearby?”_ _

__“No-oo,” Steve says. “Can’t go home, it’s too far. Take me to Maria’s.”_ _

__Bucky frowns, trying to figure out how he’s going to half-carry over two-hundred pounds of drunk soldier and both their bags, “Maria?”_ _

__“Cap-i-tain Maria,” Steve says, unhelpfully._ _

__Luckily Bucky is feeling pretty sharp, and sharper by the moment. Nothing as sobering as being responsible. And the rank strikes a lightbulb, “Captain Hill?” he asks._ _

__Steve hiccups and nods, eyes still closed as he lets his head loll against Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky sighs._ _

__“Steve? Pal, gotta get with it for a sec, where does Captain Hill live?”_ _

__Steve blinks blearily at him. “Oh!” he says, frowning in concentration. “Uhhhhhhhhh,” the noise almost drones out into nothing and Bucky thinks he’s lost the thread altogether when he snaps back and says, “Maple! 394 number one-oh-twooo.” He sings the last bit._ _

__Bucky is just sighing in relief—Maple is only four blocks over—when Steve adds in a happy little singsong, “and my baby is there!”_ _

__Oh—kay. Bucky goes stiff for a second processing that through his slower-than-usual brain. Baby? Did he totally miss mention of Steve having a kid at some point?_ _

__Then Steve is slipping out of his grasp, going boneless in the direction of the booth again, and Bucky has to fight to keep him upright. They’re starting to get a look from the wait staff._ _

__“Whoa there soldier. Let’s get you out of here.”_ _

__Four blocks, it turns out, is quite far enough. Bucky is panting by the time they reach Maple, turning up as he eyes the building numbers. Thank god one-oh-two must be a ground floor unit. He’s not at all sure he could get Steve up a flight of stairs at this point._ _

__Steve, for his part, seems like he’s having a great time. He hums a little bit to himself with each wobbly step._ _

__“Hey!” he says in a loud whisper, rubbing his chin on Bucky’s shoulder and making him shiver a little bit at the warm breath against his ear._ _

__“Yeah buddy?” Bucky asks, trying hard to concentrate on the task at hand and not Steve’s lips or his fingers which have slid over to grasp the side of Bucky’s neck._ _

__“You know, you could take advantage of me. If you wanted.” Steve says, this time at a normal volume._ _

__Bucky swallows hard. “Ah,” he says. “I’m glad to know Drunk Steve wouldn’t mind, but I think I’d better find out what Sober Steve thinks first, don’t you?”_ _

__“Pshhhhhh” says Steve with a wild flap of his free hand. “Sober Steve is boring and dumb and we don’t care what he thinks. He didn’t even ask you out like an idiot! Sober Steve thinks you’re too handsome. But you know what? I’m handsome too! Anyway he had to get Ch-chester to do it,” he dissolves into a fit of giggles at the name, and Bucky grins. Too handsome? Sober Steve definitely is going to be embarrassed tomorrow, that he's sure of. His smile fades. He just hopes Sober Steve isn’t embarrassed enough to ghost him. Because he really wants to take advantage of Sober Steve some time._ _

__“I think we’re here, Drunk Steve.” He says, locating the numbers on the white stucco building. It’s nice, Spanish style roof and big bougainvillea growing up the side._ _

__He manages to get Steve the rest of the way to the door, extricating one arm from Steve’s gym bag to knock. Shit, he’s just realized he really hopes this isn’t going to be a shocker for Hill. He has no idea if this is normal for them. Although she’s supposedly watching Steve’s…baby. Bucky’s stomach turns a little. He can’t deal with that right now, he’ll figure out what to do with that knowledge when he’s not using all his focus keeping Steve upright._ _

__Thanks be to all things high and holy, it is in fact Captain Hill who opens the door. Bucky feels further blessed by the fact that she doesn’t appear to have been asleep yet, though she’s in sweatpants and a ratty tee and clearly headed there._ _

__“Oh!” she says, a look of confusion as she recognizes Bucky, then, “oh.” She adds as she takes in Steve, slumped against him. “Well good evening Steven.”_ _

__Then several things happen at once which Bucky has a hard time tracking._ _

__First, a man who is also wearing pajamas comes up behind Hill, asking “what’s all this…?”_ _

__Meanwhile, a bright white streak has bolted past him, straight at Steve, who is sinking to the ground cooing “My baby!”_ _

__Maria is rubbing her hands over her face looking exasperated, and the man has doubled over in laughter, his teeth bright against his dark skin and his eyes screwed shut._ _

__Steve is on the ground now, allowing himself to be licked to death by a stout, blocky dog who has climbed fully into his lap._ _

__And the only thing Bucky manages is to look at Maria and ask, “Baby?”_ _


	8. Eight

Steve wakes up with a dawning realization that his efforts to wrap the pillow around his head to cushion it are failing because the pain is coming from inside his skull, not out. 

He lets out a groan and tries to think about opening his eyes, though he can already tell the sunshine is searing and bright and evil on the other side of his eyelids. 

“Hey there sleeping beauty,” a low-yet-still-too-loud voice says from nearby. 

Steve draws a shaky breath and screws his courage to the sticking place, slitting his eyes open enough to see that the voice is Sam, sitting on an armchair across from him. He wonders for a flash what Sam is doing in his apartment, before the crashing memory that he is not in his apartment—and why—floods in. 

He lets out another groan, and shuts his eyes again. 

“Ohh yes,” Sam coos, and Steve realizes now that his considerate, quiet tones are a trap, “yes we have much to talk over today my hungover friend. You had quite the evening.”

Steve rolls over, wanting to bury his face in the back of Maria’s couch and die. But he isn’t allowed the thought for very long, as his neck is quickly being bathed in slobbery dog kisses. Baby presses her snout into his ear and whuffles, loudly, forcing him to turn back over and give her the ear scritches she’s looking for. 

With a heroic effort (he thinks) he manages to sit up and put his feet on the floor. Baby pushes in between his knees, nosing up to give him better access to scratch her blocky chin. His eyes seem like they can maybe stay open without requiring all of his concentration. 

“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Sam all but whispers, a twinkle in his eyes that says he is greatly looking forward to giving Steve hell about this situation, “or Gatorade. Which would probably help.” 

Steve just grunts, letting his head fall back against the couch. The effort of sitting up already has his body feeling rebellious and topsy-turvy, so he’s not going to risk the walk to the kitchen yet. 

“So…” he starts, although he doesn’t want to hear it. 

“So-ooo,” Sam echoes, playfully, “how’d it go?”

“Well. I got drunk.”

Sam laughs at that and the noise is like a full brass band stomping around on Steve’s forehead, and he slaps a useless hand up to it. 

“Whoops, sorry,” Sam says, voice pitched low again. “Hang on, this conversation will probably be better with Tylenol.” 

Steve gives a wordless noise of confirmation, and Sam slips away into the back bedroom, returning with a bottle of Tylenol and a tall glass of water. Steve’s stomach roils a little at the sight of all that liquid, but if he learned anything in his first two years of enlistment (okay, he learned a lot those years) it’s what to do to kill a hangover quick. He takes the pills and downs the glass, handing it back to Sam with a brief look of gratitude. 

“Anyway,” Sam says, sprawling back into his armchair, letting one bare foot dangle over the side, “I wouldn’t say drunk exactly. More like plastered…shattered…twisted—”

Steve holds up a hand to stop him before he gets any further. 

“So what happened bro?” Sam asks, tone a little more sympathetic, “you hardly ever even drink anymore usually.” 

Steve scrunches up his nose, trying to decide if the pain is located in any specific part of his skull or is just hanging out everywhere. He is unable to determine anything. 

“I dunno man,” he says, peering at Sam with one bleary eye, “I got nervous! It was this weird crazy set-up thing and then we both said it was a date but I haven’t been on a date in ages and I was afraid I’d screw it up so I just thought I’d…chill out. And yeah, I hardly drink anymore so I guess my tolerance is…not great.” 

Sam throws his head back in a laugh that he manages to keep mostly silent, much to Steve’s thanks. 

“Yeah you were chilled the fuck right out by the time he got you here, so mission accomplished.”

Steve makes what he knows is a pitiful sound in his throat, burying his head in Baby’s wrinkly neck. It’s not a good decision—she loves it so much it sends her into an immediate fit of wiggles, which in turn feels like it rattles his bruised brain. 

“That’s it. I’m never gonna hear from him again. I’d be surprised if I ever see him at work even—he’ll probably just quit and then the ball will also be ruined by my complete inability to handle my liquor.” 

Sam raises his eyebrows and gives Steve a gap-toothed, cheshire grin. 

“I don’t know about that, man. He seemed not so much bummed about you being drunk as worried about why you hadn’t mentioned that you have a kid…”

“…I’m sorry, a _what_ now?”

Sam’s smile grows impossibly wider. “Well as far as I can tell by the time you landed on our porch you were pretty excited telling him all about how much you love your Baby…”

“Oh. My. God.” Steve scrubs both hands over his face. “But like, Baby was here right, and he figured out—and you told him she’s not like, a human child? Please tell me you cleared this up for me so I don’t have to bring it up.” He pauses, feeling a little hysterical, “not that I’ll ever get the chance because I’m _never gonna see him again_.” 

Sam chuckles softly, “Oh we cleared it up, also your patio make-out session with ‘Baby’ sort of took care of that.” 

Baby’s little piggy ears perk up at her name—she is absurdly devoted to Sam in a way that Steve categorically denies Sam deserves—and abandons Steve to sit on Sam’s foot. 

“Anyway man you’re not hearing what I’m saying. I’m pretty sure that dude was fully convinced me and Maria were gonna open the door with your infant on a hip and he was freaked out but not like… _freaking out_. You know?”

Steve just groans again. He’s too hungover to follow Sam’s particular labyrinthine speech patterns. 

“Like, he wasn’t dumping you on the porch in a ‘here’s this hot mess please take him’ way, more like a ‘please make sure he’s safe and drinks water’ way. And let me tell you—the puppy dog eyes he gave Maria when he asked about your kid…he was real broken up about you not telling him. Must’ve been some date before you got out of hand.” 

Steve peers at Sam suspiciously, trying to figure out if he’s messing with him—or, more likely with Sam, just trying to make him feel better. 

“You serious man? Don’t fuck with me.” 

“Yeah! Serious as hell!” and Sam does look earnest, teasing smile set aside, “you’re gonna see him again.” The smile creeps back. “Just do us a favor and give us a heads up next time so we can prepare for you huh? We should have done some stretches, little warm up run maybe, you are one heavy dude. We’d just been eating ice cream in our pajamas and I think I pulled something trying to lift you on cold muscles bro.” 

Steve thinks the Tylenol must be kicking in finally, because he feels good enough to shoot back a grin of his own and ask, “oh yeah? Slumber party? Again? What’s that—third this week?”

“Man, shut up! I like it here. My apartment’s always dusty.”

“Sam,” Steve starts slowly, “do you understand why that might be? You get that this apartment isn’t dusty because Maria actually dus—”

“Oh I’M SORRY WHAT?” Sam pitches his voice to ask just below a yell, “I’m not sure I could HEAR YOU STEVE?”

Steve’s head is instantly throbbing again, and he cries out as he throws himself back down on the couch, “I’m sorry! Please, I take it back! I have no idea why your apartment is more dusty, sleep wherever you want!”

“That’s right, yeah that’s right,” Sam says, volume back to less painful levels. “Don’t go picking any fights with me right now son.” 

Steve stays still for a few moments with his arm flung over his face. Eventually he groans and sits up again. Sam has started scrolling idly on his phone, and Steve looks over at him. 

“It’s nice,” Steve says after a few more quiet moments. 

“What’s that?” Sam asks, not looking up from his screen. 

“You and Maria. Seems like it’s going well. I like it.” 

Now Sam does look over, a tender look on his face. “Thanks Steve. I like it too.” 

Steve nods, enjoying the comfortable kind of happiness radiating from Sam. Sitting here in Maria’s apartment in his pjs, you’d never know they’d danced around each other as just friends for so long before they’d hit on…whatever this is now. 

“Just for that,” Sam adds, grinning wickedly, “Imma let you in on a little something and tell you—you should probably check your phone sooner than later, because it gave off a few small but I suspect important buzzes from inside the couch somewhere while you were still passed out—”

He breaks off into laughter as Steve crashes off the sofa, hurling cushions and almost falling with his legs tangled in blankets. Baby darts into the fray with a few happy barks at the melee. 

But he’s never gone down in a fight yet, and he emerges after a few moments of frantic searching, victorious, with the phone clutched in his hand. 

***

Bucky is diving for his phone the second that it buzzes on the countertop, and the exaggerated motion draws a knowing smirk from Clint. Bucky flips him off half-heartedly, all focus on his phone screen. 

Shit, just a text from his mom about coming for dinner this week. He sighs and tosses it back down. 

He’s been sitting at the counter of their small kitchen most of the morning, watching Clint cook and occasionally volunteering as taste tester. Clint’s on this kick right now where he’ll spend a whole weekend making a million meals to put in the freezer to eat all month. He says it’s because it saves him time, but as far as Bucky can tell it just means all the time is spent at once in one highly messy lump that means every single pot has to be washed. 

But he’s been pretty shitty company this morning. The only reason he’s hanging out in here instead of moping in his room is because he wants Clint to distract him from obsessing over his text messages. He’d woken up uncharacteristically early (it might’ve had something to do with Clint starting a blender at some god-forsaken hour, so whatever, Clint deserves his shitty company) and he’d waited as long as physically possible to text Steve. 

And he knew Steve wouldn’t be up early, so the lack of reply was definitely because Steve was still asleep. Probably. Hopefully. 

After great deliberation about how to seem 1. chill, 2. not freaked out, 3. still interested, and 4. preferably witty and cool, he’d sent two texts: 

Bucky: _Hey Cap! Drunk Steve gave me your number, hope that’s cool. I’m guessing you’re probably Hungover Steve by now…just wanted to say I hope the only thing you’re regretting about last night is that last rum and coke._

Bucky: _Also…let’s do it again sometime?_

In the two hours since he’d sent them, he’d gone through several full cycles of thinking he’s just made the biggest mistake ever and he sounds like a desperate and clingy crazy person and then thinking it is exactly what he wants to say and he’s proud of himself for not being coy about it. 

Asshole Bucky probably would’ve waited til tonight or even tomorrow to text him at all, just to make sure he milked the chance to get the upper hand. 

But new Bucky doesn’t want to get the upper hand on Steve…he just generally would like to get his hands all over him in a mutually respectful and totally non-manipulative way. Because Steve deserves a good person and damn it, Bucky is going to prove he is one. 

His phone buzzes again and even though it’s probably his mom texting her trademarked follow-up text consisting of just several emphatic question marks, his heart leaps into his throat and he can’t help but repeat the frantic dive for it. 

Clint rolls his eyes. 

Bucky sees the name on the screen and lets out an involuntary yelp. 

“Captain America?” Clint asks in a tone of feigned indifference. He pretends to be uninterested in the whole saga, but he’s watching Bucky’s face closely out of the corner of his eye.  
Bucky nods, eyes scrambling to read the preview even as he’s swiping to open it. 

Steve: _Hungover Steve is present and accounted for_

There’s a pause where Bucky thinks he might bore a hole in his phone for how intently he’s staring down the three little “typing” dots waiting for more. 

Steve: _but I can’t be too bummed if whatever I did in any way makes you still want to try a second date._

Bucky lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, trying to formulate a response to that. He thinks about making a joke about how it’s Steve’s turn to make a date happen since he picked the place and paid last night, but then he’s worried Steve might take it the wrong way. He can’t think of anything clever and he knows he’s let Steve’s text hang too long, so he just goes for unvarnished truth. 

Bucky: _You pick a time and a place Cap, and I’ll be there._

The typing dots immediately jump back up—then disappear. Then they’re back for a long moment. Bucky lets out a growl of impatience. Finally a new bubble pops up. 

Steve: _It’s a deal. I’ll do that :)_  
Steve: _So you’re not hungover even a little bit??_  
Steve: _What are you up to today?_

Bucky: _Nothing!_

Bucky shoots back the word probably too fast, not even bothering to answer the other question. The dots are back. Man, fuck those dots, he thinks. 

And they’re still going. 

Bucky slaps his forehead with an anguished noise, realizing that oh-my-god Steve wasn’t trying to like, do something today, he was just asking to make conversation! He starts typing furiously to preempt whatever gentle letdown Steve is crafting—something about how he’s just doing chores, totally has plans but you know, whatever—when another bubble pops up. 

Steve: _In that case…I was going to take Baby to the beach. Wanna join?_

 

An hour and a half later Bucky is shuffling his toes in the fine grained sand and scanning the stairs from the street for the one thousandth time in fifteen minutes. 

It’s not even like Steve is late, Bucky's the one who showed up way too early like the overeager moron he absolutely is. Just a man, standing on dog beach with no dog, staring in the opposite direction of the ocean.

He sees Baby before he sees Steve, barreling in his direction with Steve far in her wake. 

He’s a little surprised he recognizes her from one—er—meeting. But, he cocks his head as she closes the space between them, he supposes she’s pretty recognizable. Some kind of pittie-mutt mix and built like a tank, she’s got bright white fur with black spotted skin peeking through. She looks a lot more like a baby hippo than a dog he decides. He grins. He can’t help but smile at look of sheer joy on her face as she hurtles past him to attack an incoming wave. 

Bucky turns from the spectacle—snapping mandibles and spraying foam and thrashing tail—back to Steve, who has finally caught up. He’s grinning too, but it fades momentarily. He bends over to rest his forearms in his knees, letting out a couple of heavy breaths. 

“You going to be alright there, champ?” Bucky asks. 

Steve gives him a wry half-smile, half-grimace. “Pretty sure—can’t say I’m usually winded by a hundred yard dash but, ya know—extraordinary circumstances.” 

Bucky’s eyes crinkle at that. “Extraordinary huh? Guess it’s been a while since college. The old bones can’t take a hangover like they used to?”

“Yeah something like that…c’mere, let’s sit down. She’ll be at it for a while.” He gestures Bucky to the tall point in the sand where high tide hits. It’s almost all the way out currently, so there’s a wide, clean expanse of beach in front of them. A couple other dogs are playing in the surf or chasing balls, but it’s not very crowded considering that it’s a clear blue Saturday. 

“It’s funny, growing up we always had at least one dog or two at all times, but I don’t think we ever came down here with them.” Bucky comments, eyeing a well-trained shepard as it leaps into the air after a frisbee. “Probably because we never trained ‘em enough to let them off leash a place like this and still hope they’d come back.” 

“I miss having a dog,” he adds a little wistfully, realizing it’s true. 

“Dogs are the best thing in the world,” Steve agrees, fervently. 

Bucky laughs at his tone. “So how’d you end up with this specific one? Is there a story behind the fact that you named her _Baby_?” 

He puts a delicate emphasis on the last word, still a little raw from the admittedly brief but chilling misunderstanding about it last night. 

(Though if Bucky is one hundred and ten percent honest with himself, the thing that scared him the most about it wasn’t the supposed realization that Steve might have a kid…but the realization that it hadn’t been an immediate dealbreaker for him. That was some seriously heavy shit.)

Steve squirms a little, working his feet into the sand. He’s also blushing again. “Yeah, there is. But it’s predictably embarrassing.” 

Bucky crows, “Even better! Out with it Rogers, tell me all about Baby.” 

Steve reaches a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, and looks at Bucky sidelong. 

“Alright, I guess it’s not so much of a big story or anything. I’d just gotten here from my last duty station and I didn’t know anybody yet—Maria was deployed at the time—and I was in my new apartment wondering why I bothered instead of just living in barracks since it’s cheaper. And I was feeling sorry for myself and lonely and so I decided I needed a friend and instead of trying to make one with an actual human I realized it would be so much easier to go find one at the pound. So I went to the animal shelter—huge huge mistake I’ll never make again, I can still remember the faces of dogs I didn’t adopt and sometimes I lie awake wondering if they ever got a home…”

But looks down quickly at the sand between his knees, trying not to smile too much. He doesn’t want Steve to think he’s laughing at him when really he’s thinking that’s the sweetest but also saddest thing he’s ever heard. 

“…but then I saw her,” he gestures at the writhing white body chasing a wave out, “and she was by far the saddest thing I’d ever seen. She was just nosed into the corner of her cement pen, ears down, shaking. And she looked like I felt so I filled out the papers and took her home on the spot.” 

“And she came with the name Baby?”

A pause. “No…that was me.” 

“Why?”

Steve mumbles something that Bucky can’t quite hear. 

“What’s that?”

Steve sighs, “I said ‘nobody puts Baby in a corner.’”

Bucky just looks at him for a second, startled. Then he busts up laughing. 

“Oh Steve you didn’t! You didn’t name your dog from a Dirty Dancing quote?”

Steve throws up defensive hands, “It seemed really appropriate at the time!” 

Bucky rocks back a little, still laughing at Steve’s rueful expression. 

“As you have experienced, I’ve gotten into trouble about it more than once. I feel like I’ve paid my dues for that rash decision.”

“Yeah well, no harm no foul. Love you, love your child right? Both furred and non-furred varieties.” 

Steve snorts. 

They subside for a little into a comfortable silence, watching Baby’s antics as she tries, again and again, to defeat the ocean. Every time she fails she comes back with apparently utter conviction that it’s possible to win the next round. 

He’s thinking absently about what it would be like to have that kind of attitude—Steve’s right, humans don’t deserve dogs—and he doesn’t realize right away that Steve has stopped looking at the dog and the ocean and begun looking at Bucky. 

Bucky turns to his gaze, catching him in the act. Steve blushes again and looks away. The sun is caught in his hair, turning his normal blond to shining gold. 

“Sorry I—I just realized I haven’t seen you not in a suit before.” His cheeks are flaming. 

“You—oh,” Bucky says, looking down at himself. He’d been in such a rush to leave the house (to get here half an hour earlier than necessary) that he hadn’t really thought much about what he was wearing. It’s just a pair of shorts and a slightly faded teal t-shirt. 

His mouth turns up at the corners. Apparently something about it is working for Steve at least. Steve can’t seem to stop looking at him. Which is fair, because Steve looks good too. Bucky lets himself give Steve a very obvious and slow up and down, just to see if the blush can really reach all the way to his hairline if pressed. Yeah, even a little paler than normal and with hair that still looks a bit slept on, he looks good. 

Bucky turns back toward the waves, still aware of Steve’s long, carved profile in his periphery. Without turning he reaches out and takes Steve’s hand in his. Steve gives a small start at the first contact—but then he’s shifting the angle of his wrist to interlace his fingers with Bucky’s. And Bucky knows that for the first time his face is probably burning just as pink as Steve’s. 

Both of them may be looking at the ocean, but Bucky can feel that every drop of their attention is centered on that warm, electric point of connection. 

They sit like that for a long time, not saying a word.


	9. Nine

It turns out to be a very good thing that the two of them were able to fit in the impromptu second date dog beach trip the day after their first, because come Monday things suddenly become so hectic it feels unlikely that a date would’ve happened that week. And if Bucky hadn’t managed to see Steve and reassure him within the week, he’s pretty sure it wouldn’t have happened at all. The thought makes him almost ill. 

The problem is that the Marine Corps Ball—culmination of all Bucky’s hard work—is in less than two weeks. And on Monday his caterer drops out. So begins a mad dash to the finish. It’s always like that, to some extent. Something always goes wrong and things have to be pulled together last minute…usually it’s just not quite as big of a thing as food for the entire event. 

Steve is busier than usual too, evidently, although he can’t really tell Bucky much about it. 

Bucky is just glad, with two real dates under their belt, that they manage to steal at least one coffee break together on an afternoon when he’s on base checking in. They sit for a whole thirty minutes in the break room, feet tangled up together under the table and trying to talk but mostly getting distracted when they look at each other and giggling instead. 

Bucky spends all thirty minutes thinking about how blessed he is by the fact that Steve’s uniform for the day has short, rolled up sleeves that stretch across his biceps. He whistles the Marine Corps hymn as he walks back to his car. 

He may not be sleeping much in the next eight days, but he’s been doing this long enough to know it will come together, one way or another. And after that, all he can think of is Steve and Steve and more Steve, and the next time and next hundred times that he gets to see him. 

***

Steve spends the whole thirty minutes of their stolen coffee break thinking about how dark silver Bucky’s eyes are, and how he’d like to fall in and drown in them.  
But for all that he spends those precious minutes thinking, it’s what he pointedly spends them not thinking about that matters more.  
How suddenly, this week, there is a buzz around HQ that wasn’t there before. How his team has been observed in training three times already by the brass—always just happening to drop by when they’re at the gun range or running drills in the tactical village. He knows what it means; it’s a rodeo he’s been to three times already. Assignments are going to be coming down soon. 

And there is almost no chance that he and his team aren’t getting deployed. 

It’s not the end of the world, not to Steve. This is what he’s trained for, worked for, strategized for since the last time he stepped foot stateside. This is the career he chose. There’s always even been satisfaction for him when the hurry-up-and-wait ends and it’s time to just get it done. He’s not afraid of going back into combat, and if he’s right about the kind of op his team seems to be getting trained for, it’s not even going to be the longest of his overseas assignments to date. 

No, what he’s afraid is that there’s a very real possibility that the news might just be the end of the world to Bucky. 

Steve knows it’s possible the news, whenever it happens, could stop this thing they’ve got going right in its tracks. He couldn’t even blame the guy if it did—he’s not military, this kind of thing just isn’t part of his life, he sure as hell didn’t sign up for it on purpose like Steve did. 

Plus Steve’s had it happen before. His first deployment broke up a relationship that had been going a lot longer than this one. And yeah there were a lot of other reasons why that’s true but it doesn’t stop his heart from stuttering a little when he thinks about having to have The Conversation with Bucky when and if he gets the orders. 

He doesn’t want to have The Conversation. He wants to talk about Bucky’s upcoming events and about whether he likes Thai food and about which side of the bed he wants and on and on forever. He doesn’t want The Conversation to put a stop to all of them. He doesn’t want to see the change when Bucky’s bright, open face turns closed and the grey blue eyes avoid Steve’s as he tries to figure out how to tell Steve that he can’t handle it. 

He wants to freeze this moment in time and live in it forever, shitty commissary coffee and all.

And he tells himself that since he hasn’t officially heard anything, he doesn’t have to think about it—yet. And he doesn’t have to feel guilty if he doesn’t bring it up—yet. And he doesn’t have to give this up—yet. 

So he listens as Bucky tells him all the things he has to do to get ready for the ball, and he hopes that “yet” doesn’t happen before that night. Because he loves that Bucky is excited and even though there are tired lines around his eyes, he’s lit up from the inside as he goes over his to-do list and as he tosses out a sly remark about getting to see Steve’s dress blues. Because Bucky has never looked more handsome than in this moment under the flickering fluorescent light, eyes puffy from lack of sleep, and a grin made of pure adrenaline and enthusiasm.

And Steve hopes against hope that the good old United States Marine Corps doesn’t do anything in the next eight days to ruin that. He’s not ready quite yet. 

***

By the time the Marines start pouring into the hotel lobby, Bucky is flying high as a kite. The last minute caterer he had to book has knocked it out of the park, champagne flutes are stacked tall and glittering awaiting their contents, and the centerpieces are bright spots of cheerful color spread across the tables. Finally, after all the planning and arranging and scrambling, this is the moment he gets to stand in the eye of the hurricane and savor it. 

The guests begin to enter, finding their seats and starting immediately for the bar. Bucky shakes his head fondly. Marines. He’s glad he decided not to open up anything but beer or wine until after the ceremonial stuff. They can all get as messy as they want after that. He doesn’t think Phillips would be above sending anybody who’s drunk enough to spoil the formalities to the brig—or wait, that’s on boats, right?—well to whatever fancy name Marines call their special Marine jails. 

Bucky smiles broadly, looking over the crowd. The boys look good—it’s hard not to in the Marine dress uniform—but for this one situation at least, Bucky is more interested in the female dates. They’re the ones who get the real kick out of this, Bucky knows. Women don’t get enough chances to wear floor length gowns in their lives, and it makes them so happy! They’ve all turned out to the nines and you can see the pride on their faces at being there. 

The non-Marine male guests mostly all have the pride-in-their-dates look, but he can’t say he’s super impressed by the lack of commitment to their formal attire. He straightens the bottom of his tux jacket. Bucky always commits in his formal attire. His bowtie is the type you actually have to tie and everything. 

Although he knows the general area where Steve will be sitting when he comes in (the tables are arranged by rank), he doesn’t get a chance to catch a glimpse of him before he’s being pulled away from the floor by some minor crisis. After that, another immediately demands his attention. 

Bucky solves them both in record time, because he’s on fire tonight. 

He misses the first part of the ceremonies (he knows the scripts by heart at this point anyway, and he doesn’t feel too broken up to have missed out on the Official Cake Escort which is a thing he was delighted to learn exists). But he finishes helping the kitchen staff locate two missing crates of crème brulee ramekins and emerges just in time to see the Retiring of the Colors. 

When the band strikes up the Marine Corps hymn, he can’t help but swell a little with pride himself as the whole room bursts into singing…

 _If the Army and the Navy ever gaze on heaven’s scene, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines!_

Bucky can’t even spare the part of his brain that would normally reserve some skepticism about jingoistic nationalism because that’s when he finally catches sight of Steve across the ballroom, standing tall in his uniform with his hand over his heart. 

And somehow it doesn’t matter that it’s the same uniform that half of the other bodies in the room are sporting, he’s never seen anything that looks like Steve does in this moment. His broad shoulders are what that coat was made for, buttoned straight and tidy up to his neck. Everything about him is sharp edges and clean lines and strong planes, from the stripe down the side of his long legs right up to his perfectly shaped eyebrows. Bucky can’t tell if he’s singing—god, can Steve sing? He should find out—but he’s smiling, and he’s got a golden glow. 

Just as the song ends, and the Master of Ceremonies is telling them to enjoy the party, Steve’s face turns, as if his eyes are being drawn by a magnetic force to find Bucky’s. His bright blue eyes crinkle around the edges and his smile twists sideways in a look that’s just for him. He raises a gloved hand and gives Bucky a small salute. 

Bucky has no idea what the look on his face is and he doesn’t care. All there is is Steve. 

And then he’s being jostled by a waiter running past with a bucket of ice to reinforce the bar, and everything in the room starts again. Someone’s calling for him, and he spins to see what it is they need. On the dance floor, Hess is leading his wife out to open the dancing. This party is about to become a Party. 

***

Steve’s eyes stay in the empty place Bucky was standing for several seconds after the man himself has vacated it, rushing away to do something that looks urgent. Then he turns back to the table, finding that both Maria and Sam are looking at him with twin expressions of fond smugness. 

“Boyfriend sighting?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Steve chuckles nervously, “Hah yeah…wait no! I mean—he’s not my boyfriend, he’s just—”

“Just the guy you’re crazy about, we know,” Maria chimes in helpfully. 

Steve brings a hand up to cover his face. “I hate you guys.”

“We know,” they say at the same time, then turn to each other with a grin, clinking champagne glasses. 

“He looks pretty good tonight Steve, am I right?” Maria asks. 

“Yeah man, I’m pretty sure that tux is not a rental. I think that dude is wearing French cuffs!” Sam turns to Maria, “hey, why didn’t you get me a shirt with French cuffs?”

She raises her eyebrows. “You own a pair of cufflinks?”

“Oh, uh…no.”

“Well there you go,” she says in a way that means case-closed. “Alright boys, who’s gonna sign my dance card first? No fights now…”

“Whoa! Does your date not get automatic dibs on first dance here? Wait…you don’t really have a dance card at this thing right?”

Maria laughs and drains the rest of her half-empty champagne flute, grabbing Sam by his tie. 

“Come on then, let’s see what you got Wilson,” she says, tugging him toward the floor. Sam gives Steve a comical shrug like, hey what can you do? and doesn’t protest the manhandling. 

Steve watches them for a minute, laughing as Maria replaces Sam’s hands at her waist into the correct position. They look happy, he thinks. Sam’s suit, despite the lack of a French cuff, is tailored well and Steve can tell Maria had a hand in picking out his outfit so it would match her dress blues. Maria looks good too, even in the severe cut of her uniform skirt and jacket. She inhabits it well, back straight and chin up, her dark hair glossy in its sleek up-do. Sam attempts to dip her, and she shakes her head, laughing helplessly and saying something Steve can only guess at. 

A handful of officers come up to him to say hi and introduce their dates—not failing down to a one to ask after his. He gives each of them a shrug and a smile that says he isn’t too down about it as he tells them he’s going stag tonight. He compliments the ladies’ on their dresses or shoes, because they’re all dressed their best and they deserve it, but also because it makes them feel good and he likes that. 

He does his duty, too, and strolls by the head table to say hello to Colonel Phillips and his wife who are working through their dessert course.  
“No dancing for you tonight, Colonel?” he asks. 

Colonel Phillips heaves a rough sigh and gives him a deadpan look. “Not tonight I’m afraid, Mrs. Phillips rolled her ankle earlier today so we’re on doctor’s orders.”  
The sentence rolls out in one monotone breath that indicates the Colonel has given this statement more than once this evening. Steve glances between the Colonel’s craggy glare and his wife’s small smirk and doesn’t comment. 

He drifts around the edge of the room, keeping an eye out for Hill and Sam. He doesn’t need to, they’re doing plenty fine without him babysitting…he just can’t help it. It doesn’t take long before the dance floor starts to get a bit more wild, movements looking more fluid even in stiffly starched uniforms. 

He isn’t paying close attention to where exactly he’s walking, eyes toward the center of the room where the crowd is focused, and so he jumps a little when a low voice by his shoulder says, “going my way, soldier?”

Bucky is leaning in a doorway that Steve imagines leads back into the action—the staging areas and kitchen. His arms are crossed over his chest and his hip is cocked at an angle. He rakes a brazen look up and down Steve, sending a small shiver through him that he knows is exactly what Bucky intended. Steve gives him a considering look. He’s getting better at not getting flustered by Bucky when he turns on the charm…not _too_ flustered, anyway. 

“Depends, what way is that?”

Bucky tips his head back in a laugh, and Steve watches his throat move with the sound. 

“Good question.” He gives Steve another smile, softer this time. The real Bucky smile. “Say, that’s some fruit salad you’ve got there, Cap.” 

Steve glances down at the collection of ribbons and things decorating his chest and back up at Bucky, grinning. 

“You just learned that expression tonight, didn’t you?”

Bucky looks sheepish. “Yeah I might’ve been tipped on some helpful insider lingo, you know—complimenting you boys in your own language.” He cocks his head and studies Steve’s medals again. “Sure does seem like you’ve got a lot of ’em though, just on a visual comparative analysis.” 

Steve shrugs. You end up with a bunch of stuff tossed at you if you do enough tours of duty without dying, and he doesn’t feel like making a thing about it. 

“So, you here this evening unattached?” he asks instead, a little surprised (and pleased) that he might be upping his flirtation game just a bit. 

Bucky meets his eyes steadily, smile the shape of a challenge. 

“Not sure yet. Kinda got a thing going but the guy seems to be taking it slow.” 

“Slow a bad thing?”

The corners of Bucky’s mouth quirk up, and the look he shoots Steve makes his heart thud for a moment like it’s going to stop. 

“Not for everything, Cap” he says, in a voice pitched low enough that only Steve could have heard and hey when had Steve stepped in so close? He can’t quite remember telling his feet to do that…

In fact it seems like the rest of his body has decided that his brain isn’t doing enough in its leadership role and has moved on without him--he’s leaning forward, body arced toward Bucky but not touching him. He leans his forearm against the doorframe over Bucky’s head, and Bucky—god bless him—licks his lips, eyes dropping to Steve’s mouth. 

And instead of going for it Steve clears his throat, because he’s not sure he’s ready for this in the busy doorway of the catering kitchen. So instead he asks, “you up for a dance?”

Bucky’s eyes drag away from Steve’s mouth as if it’s an effort, and he meets Steve’s gaze again, flirtatious look fading a bit to confusion as he glances over to the crowded dance floor.

“That uh…that offer on the level, Rogers?”

Steve follows Bucky’s gaze, and knows Bucky is concerned about whether Steve really wants to make this statement right now. He must know after this amount of time that things change slower in the military than they do outside of it—with very few exceptions. 

But Steve is more than sure, he realizes he wants this dance with this man and in this place more than he could have imagined. He came out generally to the Corps when DADA got repealed, but he hasn't had a reason or a someone to make a more specific gesture before now. And if he doesn’t make this statement right now with a dance, he might end up just climbing up on the rooftop and shouting it later. So he pushes away from the door frame, straightens his jacket, and extends a hand to Bucky, inclining his upper body in just a hint of a bow. 

“Will you dance with me, Bucky?”

And Bucky stands up straight too, checking his cufflinks with a practiced motion before he places his hand in Steve’s. 

“Any time, any place.”

They turn to walk side by side deeper into the room, toward the mass of dancers, and Steve pulls Bucky’s hand up further, tucking it into the crook of his elbow. It’s how a gentleman escorts his date to the floor—especially when he’s got a catch who he wants to show to everyone. Bucky’s posture is as tall and confident as Steve’s own (and Steve thinks for the first time how Bucky is actually quite tall…not as tall as him, but close) but he betrays perhaps a small bit of nervousness in the grip he has on Steve’s arm. 

They’re just reaching the edge of the dance floor when Bucky says, “wait, hang on—”

Steve stops, catching Bucky’s eye and searching his expression, “hey—we don’t have to. I mean, you don’t have to prove anything to me here Buck.”

But Bucky’s expression isn’t nervous, and he just says seriously, “No, not that. Just…wait here a sec.” 

Then he’s slipped away between the press of bodies and Steve loses track of him for a moment. But he doesn’t even have time to wonder if he should worry before Bucky is back, a smile spreading across his face and a gleam in his eye. 

“You ready for this?” he asks, this time holding his hand out for Steve’s. And Steve doesn’t say anything but the wordless beat of his heart is tapping out _anything, anything_ as he puts his hand in Bucky’s. 

***

Bucky looks up into Steve’s face, and there’s an expression there that he can’t quite read—an unguarded mix of emotions that this isn’t the time or place to sort out. 

Because the song he requested is starting. So he pulls Steve between a few couples catching their breath on the outskirts of the dancers, and faces him squarely, taking his other hand. 

“Think you can manage to follow me?” he asks, pitching his voice so Steve can hear him above the brassy wail of the music as it rises. 

He doesn’t wait for the answer, pulling Steve closer and jumping into the steps—side, side, rock-step, he counts out loud at first so Steve can get the hang of it. But…Steve has the hang of it—like wow, Steve definitely already has the hang of it which means…

As Steve drops his left hand, fairly throwing him into a spin, Bucky throws back his head and laughs. 

Steve has done this before. 

He spins back into Steve’s broad chest, laughing again, this time at the supremely self-satisfied smile on Steve’s face. Then he’s grabbed the upper hand and is doing Steve one better, trying out a more complicated pattern of turns which Steve flies through, eyes bright. 

They take turns leading and following, each one trying to outdo the other yet still finding their feet to be moving in perfect coordination. Bucky is so focused on the feeling of lightness that is running through his veins, the shift of Steve’s arms under his hands and the mesmerizing blur of their feet, he doesn’t at first notice that the crowd has started to fall away around them. 

Like, not metaphorically because he hadn’t been paying them much attention anyway, actually literally people have drawn back from them, giving them the floor. 

His steps falter for a second and Steve cocks his head, then immediately notices what Bucky has just realized. Bucky is glad it wasn’t just him who kind of forgotten about everyone else here. They are standing at the center of a ring of people, clapping and laughing and watching, and they glance at each other, embarrassed. 

But their audience has noticed them slowing, and everybody is yelling at them not to stop now. And it seems like whatever attention they’ve drawn to themselves at this point is not going away, so Bucky raises his eyebrows at Steve and shrugs. And Steve smiles down at Buck and shrugs back. 

Bucky pulls him in close, and he can tell that however fast the music might be, both of their hearts are beating faster. 

 

When the song ends, they give the other dancers a sheepish grin and try to slip away, but nobody is having it yet and the DJ (who Bucky booked for his ability to read the room, damn him) immediately rolls into a Benny Goodman number and it feels like they’re trapped by the will of the people. They laugh and oblige everyone with a couple more of the more dramatic turn sequences. Then without having to say anything they both come to the same conclusion, and they break away from each other, each turning to pluck another partner from the crowd. 

Bucky grabs hold of Maria, doing his best to show her the easy steps. He doesn’t see who Steve dances with first. Maria giggles, and she’s pretty unsteady, enough that Bucky realizes she might be a little too champagne drunk to be starting out with a lindy hop on her first time. Sam (who Bucky only knows from that one night’s awkward introduction) seems to have come to the same conclusion, because he’s at Maria’s shoulder fairly soon telling her she’d better go have a glass of water or something. Bucky starts to turn and look for someone else to dance with but Sam, grinning, grabs his hands. 

“Nah man, I’m cutting in! Show me how to do that crazy shit!” 

Bucky decides he likes Sam. 

He does his best to whirl Sam through a couple of turns, though Sam is having a hard time trying not to lead, albeit badly. But eventually Sam is passing him off to a woman he doesn’t know, and he takes a couple of turns with a couple of partners before handing them off to their dates. 

And he finds that without meaning to he’s managed to get himself to the edge of the dance floor without anyone noticing. The square of floor is crowded again with people, and Bucky can hear the DJ starting to transition Benny Goodman into something with a little more of a bass drop. 

He catches sight of Steve, sidling off the floor at an angle to him, and he slides over to him as surreptitiously as he can, snatching Steve’s hand in his. He jerks his head for Steve to follow him, and Steve complies readily. 

They pass through the large room unnoticed, their moment in the spotlight over. Bucky leads Steve back again toward the staging areas, this time pulling him past the pipe-and-drape wall they’d erected to block off the functional end of the hall. They slip past a couple of busboys scraping dessert plates and stacking flatware to be returned. Almost at the kitchen he turns, pushing aside a curtain that’s hanging over a set of double French doors. 

Then they’re outside, both of them taking in big gulps of the cool, fresh night air. 

Bucky turns to Steve, a sloppy grin on his face. “Figured out earlier this place wasn’t going to have ballroom access, so I filed it away for personal use. Was hoping I’d get you out here with me.” 

Steve smiles too, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking around. “Out here” is one of a series of small patios off the main ballroom. A hundred feet over, the next one is full of people leaning against the balustrades, smoking and talking and taking a break from dancing. The music from inside pours out of the open doors, spilling across the night like a tipped glass of champagne. 

“Here,” Bucky says, taking Steve’s hand and pulling him into a deeper shadow on the far side of the terrace. He leans back so he’s half-sitting on the heavy stone railing, and Steve does the same, not letting go of Bucky’s hand. Steve brushes his thumb absently over his knuckles, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

Bucky doesn’t know how long they sit quietly like that, drinking in the night air with interlaced fingers. He suspects that time and space do something shifty like they seemed to on the dance floor, because when he comes back to earth he notices that most of the farther patio has emptied some, and the roar of voices from inside has dulled to a murmur. 

“I think they’re announcing the last dance,” Bucky says, ears straining to hear the DJs’ words with a frown. 

Steve stands, pulling Bucky up with him. But instead of moving toward the door, he turns to him and says in a soft voice, 

“How ‘bout one more? Just for us this time.”

And Bucky is letting him pull him in close as they begin to sway. 

_Wise men say, only fools rush in…but I can’t help falling in love with you.  
Take my hand, take my whole life too…cuz I can’t help falling in love with you._

It’s nothing like the dance earlier, all tricks and showing off. Their feet are hardly even moving, just turning slowly, pressed close together. Bucky sighs and leans his head on Steve’s chest; Steve tucks his chin on top of Bucky’s head. 

The song ends too soon—only a lifetime later. 

Bucky draws back to look up into Steve’s face. “Steve, I—”

He doesn’t know what he’s going to say. Something foolish probably, like _Steve I should get back to supervise clean up_ , or _Steve I think I might love you_. 

Instead the look on Steve’s face stops him cold and every word in his vocabulary flees him in an instant. This is not blushing, uncertain Steve, or slutty drunk Steve, or even polite, aloof work Steve. 

This is someone new. 

His look is steady, and he holds Bucky’s eyes as he slides a hand up to cup the side of Bucky’s neck, movements gentle but sure. Bucky’s mouth drops open as he lets out a breath that is halfway between a sigh and something else, and Steve brushes his thumb along Bucky’s full lower lip. 

He closes the distance between their mouths with a decisiveness that the part of Bucky’s mind that remains detached thinks has probably served him well in battle. No hesitations.

That part of his mind is quickly swept up with the rest of his senses, everything consumed by Steve’s mouth on his. 

Steve tilts Bucky’s head back, cradling the back of his neck in his hand, wrapping the other one around Bucky’s waist. Bucky lets out a small gasp as Steve pulls their bodies together, melting into him. Steve’s kisses are deep and measured and intoxicating. 

He’s taking his time, and suddenly Bucky is driven by the urge to shake him up, to make him as desperate for this as Bucky is. So Bucky pushes back against him, bringing both of his hands up to wrap behind Steve’s neck, to muss and tangle in his perfect hair. He bites at Steve’s lower lip, standing on his tiptoes so that his body is stretched against him. He bites again, this time a series of them down Steve’s throat, returning quickly back to his mouth and kissing him roughly. 

Steve makes a low noise in his throat—almost, almost Bucky would be tempted to call it a growl—and for a moment he thinks the whole world has actually begun to crumble around him at the sound of it. But it’s not the world moving, it’s them, Steve pushing Bucky backwards until his back hits the stucco wall of the hotel with a little whoosh of breath. 

Steve doesn’t give him time to catch it before his mouth is on Bucky’s again, hot and relentless, and Bucky might have miscalculated because he has no control left and all he can do is hold on to Steve for dear life. 

It would be okay to die like this, he thinks distantly. 

Bucky hooks one of his legs up around Steve’s and slots their hips together, and Steve moans into his mouth and grinds into him. Steve is kissing him now in a hungry, wanting way and there’s no way to go but up, he thinks. He doesn’t care about anything else but wherever Steve is taking him. 

A loud bang sends them springing apart, Steve turning apparently on instinct to put himself between Bucky and the source of the noise—but it’s just one of the glass French doors slamming open on its frame. An apron-clad waiter sticks his head out and calls “Evie?” onto the darkened patio. Bucky and Steve stay frozen in the shadow of the wall, and the kid disappears inside again, shutting the door behind him. 

Bucky reaches for Steve’s hand, turning him gently. Steve’s face is as flushed as he knows his own is, and they’re both panting a little. 

Bucky lets out a shaky breath. “So…?” 

Steve gives a slightly hoarse laugh, bringing his other hand up to brush his fingertips across Bucky’s cheekbone, combing his hair back from where it has fallen across his forehead. 

“So.” 

“It’s…” Bucky clears his throat, trying to sound even just a little closer to having his head all the way on his shoulders. He tries again, “it’s a shame I happen to have been informed you’re a third date type of lady, or I’d ask you to come home with me.” 

Steve’s eyes are dark and his mouth lingeringly red with kisses. He tucks his hand under Bucky’s chin, tilting his face up to look directly at him. 

“Any chance you’d come to mine instead?”

Bucky doesn’t even try for a normal tone, but even if his voice is unsteady, his emphatic nod is not as he tells Steve, “Lead the way.”


	10. Ten

“I’m telling you Barton, he did a better lindy than you,” Bucky calls from the couch, looking over his shoulder to see Clint’s reaction. 

“Shut up man, no way!” Clint says, indignant. 

Natasha snorts into her container of General’s Chicken. 

It’s Sunday afternoon, and the three of them had agreed it was the kind of day that called for a type of food that could be delivered to your doorstep. They were both here drinking coffee when Bucky had rolled in, and he isn’t _exactly_ sure when Natasha might have arrived. It’s entirely possible it was the evening before. Though he feels like he can usually tell when they are in one of their “on again” phases and things are friendlier than just friends. But he’s not going to ask. 

Anyway, he’s not really in a position to judge, as he strolled in at half past noon in his rumpled tuxedo. 

“Only a walk of shame if you feel bad about it,” he’d said with a grin when he saw that both of them were sitting in the living room. 

He’d quickly changed into shorts and a t-shirt, reemerging to fling himself down by the coffee table. 

Clint had made a sound of general disgust and gone into the kitchen, while Natasha just raised her eyebrows. 

“Come on!” Bucky had cried, “you’re seriously not gonna ask me about it?”

“NO,” comes from the kitchen at the same time as Natasha says, 

“You’re clearly dying to tell us anyway, do we have to ask?”

They hadn’t. 

Two hours later he’d mostly petered out of the details he cared to regale them with (mostly the ball and not what happened after, because gentlemen don’t kiss and tell…mostly), and they’d decided to order Chinese food. 

Now Natasha is sitting cross legged at the low coffee table, and Bucky has managed to take over the whole couch. Clint is in the kitchen again doing…something. Reorganizing their utensil drawer maybe. The guy can’t sit still to save his life, so he’s always fidgeting with something or rearranging or alphabetizing while the three of them are here hanging out. Clint _hates_ missing out on conversation but he’s also got to have his hands busy. 

“Sugar pushes?” Clint asks over the counter with a frown. 

Natasha snorts again, “sugar what now?”

Clint flaps a hand at her, “Not you—shut up!—Buck he did that one?”

Bucky nods, sympathetically, “yeah, man, flawless, practically aerial.” 

Clint hmphs and disappears again behind a cabinet door muttering. 

“So,” Natasha says, ignoring Clint, “seems like the shine isn’t off yet?”

Bucky closes his eyes with a happy smile, “not even a little, still shiny as fuck.”

“Well then hey, Steve’s already in like the eightieth percentile for your relationship successes,” she says, dryly, “I mean fifty percent you ghost after you’ve hooked up, and another thirty you drop after seeing where they live so—”

Bucky cuts her off by hurling a throw pillow at her, which she bats away, grinning in triumph. 

“Tell me I’m wrong Barnes!”

“It’s different!” he says, hearing the edge of a whine in his voice, “that was slutty Bucky! I’m being a better person now!” 

“Hmm,” she says, unconvinced, “well _not_ slutty Bucky rolled up in a second-day tux so I’m not—”

“How about texas tommys? hammerlocks?” Clint yells from the kitchen, interrupting her. 

Bucky glares at Natasha, but yells, “Yes Clint, god!”

Natasha wins the staring contest, like always. 

“Ugh,” Bucky says, throwing himself back against the armrest of the couch. 

But Nat must feel a little bad about it, because she scoots around to sit in front of the couch instead of across from it, leaning her head back against the seat next to Bucky. She looks at him as seriously as she can from upside down.

“Look I’m not saying you shouldn’t have sex. Sex is nice. People like it. But most of them like it best when they like each other. Feel me?”

“No,” Bucky grunts, petulantly. 

She sighs, then reaches up to flip her hair out at him on the cushion. “Please?”

Bucky huffs, then relents. “Fine.” 

At some point in their friendship, they’d discovered that Bucky likes braiding hair as much as Nat likes having hers braided. He sits up so he can comb his fingers through the red strands, getting rid of little knots. She closes her eyes, and he’s pretty sure in order to look any more catlike than she does now she’d have to start purring. 

He thinks she’s lost track of whatever she’d been saying as he parts her hair into sections. But she begins again without opening her eyes. 

“I’m saying if you’re sleeping with him because you like being with him, that’s not a problem. It’s only a problem if you’re—being with him because you wanna sleep with him. That’s what slutty Bucky would do.” 

Bucky wants to protest that this statement is supremely obvious. But he realizes even if it is he must need to hear it, because he’s dated plenty of people whose only real appeal was getting in their pants. Nat cracks an eye to look at him. 

“So? You really, actually like him or what?”

Bucky looks down at her, hands paused holding several sections of red hair. He decides on the most complicated pattern he knows because this conversation is easier looking at her hair and not her face. 

“Yeah I uh…I do. I really, really do.” He doesn’t know why it’s hard to tell her, or why his voice comes out with a lot more of a squeak in it than usual. 

Nat eyes him, then says softly, “Oh. Okay.” 

Clint emerges from the kitchen and drops into a perch on the arm of the couch at Bucky’s feet, watching the movement of Bucky’s hands in Nat’s hair. 

“The man showed Bucky up on the dance floor, Natasha, of course he really really likes him. It’s a bond of honor.” 

Bucky sputters in protest, “I did _not_ say he showed me up!” 

Clint shrugs. “I read between the lines.” 

Bucky shakes his head. He’s pretty sure that isn’t true. They were evenly matched. Right? Whatever. 

“So what’s this about new Bucky?” Clint asks. “He gonna empty the dishwasher once in a while? Cuz the one I got now doesn’t.”

“Nat, hit him for me please.” 

Natasha gives Clint’s leg a backhanded swat, careful not to move her head too much. 

“Ow, why?”

“He’s braiding my hair.”

Bucky sticks out his tongue at Clint for good measure. 

“Anyway Clint,” Natasha adds, snapping a hair tie off her wrist and holding it up for Bucky to take, “new version Bucky doesn’t count for you, you’re not his boyfriend.” 

Clint sounds aggrieved, “So what, I just live with you but I don’t get the upgrade?”

“In your wildest dreams, Barton,” Bucky says waggling his eyebrows at him. 

“You don’t need this upgrade, Clint. Bucky’s learning to _commit_.” 

“Shit, and I can’t seem to get rid of him.” Clint drops the face he’s making and asks Bucky, “For real though, dude, you getting serious on me?”

Bucky ties off Nat’s braid, admiring his work. 

“I dunno. Yeah. Trying?” He groans. “Look at me! I’m the worst! I don’t even know how to say it to you guys! How do I do this?”

They give each other a look across Bucky. 

“Look, dude, it’s easy,” Clint says, “you care about his feelings?”

“yeah…”

“Been honest about _your_ feelings?” Nat asks. 

“I think so—”

“Listen when he’s talking?”

“— _and_ ask him about things that don’t have to do with you?” 

Bucky hesitates, trying to remember, “yeah I’m pretty sure—”

Clint keeps going, “thought seriously about whether you could handle moving for his job all the time if this thing lasts?” 

Bucky ducks his head, a little embarrassed that he _has_ spent time thinking about this, considering they’ve only been on like two and a half-ish dates. 

“Mm _and_ whether you’d want to do all the military-wife ceremonial stuff that happens when you end up with somebody who keeps getting promoted?”

“Come on guys, don’t you think you’re jumping ahead here?” Bucky pleads. 

“No,” they both say, emphatically. 

“Thing is, nobody is saying any of it will definitely happen,” Natasha says. “But you’d be a dick if you knew for _sure_ you’d never want to do any of it and you string him along anyway.”

“Is what it is,” Clint adds with a shrug. 

They both look at him, expectant. 

“I—I think I’m okay with it. With what it is. All that stuff sounds…not bad.” Bucky can’t believe he’s saying it, much less that the words are completely true. 

“Huh,” says Natasha. 

“Well shit dude,” says Clint, slapping Bucky’s bare feet, “in that case I think you should just marry this guy right now—ow!” Bucky kicks him. “I’m just saying I have seen you ghost a guy because you had to take the 163 to get to his house—”

“Unghh that’s not fair, it’s _always_ jammed!”

“—so the fact that you’re enough of a sucker for Steve that you’d even consider putting up with all that military shit is mindboggling.” Clint finishes, as if Bucky hadn’t interrupted. 

Bucky appeals to Nat, gesturing at Clint like _can you believe this guy?_

Nat’s mouth twists. “Honestly he’s right Buck, we kind of figured you hadn’t really thought far enough ahead to realize what you could be getting into here, otherwise you’d be out…”

Bucky isn’t sure if he feels betrayed or proud to be going against type. 

Natasha grins. “This is a good thing. I think.”

“Yeah, new Bucky, I like it,” Clint says, slapping Bucky’s legs again and jumps away before Bucky can retaliate with another kick. “Hope this means no more randos in the apartment for a while, that last one almost scared me into some kind of seizure.”

Bucky flips him off, but Clint is already facing back toward whatever project he’d started in the kitchen. Then Bucky’s phone buzzes on the couch next to him. 

Steve: _So…is it totally lame to admit that I sort of miss you already?_

Bucky almost but not quite manages to suppress the dopey grin that immediately takes hold of his face, and Natasha groans and gets up to clear the Chinese containers.

Bucky: _not lame if the feeling’s mutual_  
Bucky: _which it is_

Bucky is pleased with himself at sending the second text immediately. Asshole Bucky would've made Steve ask first.

Steve: _okay good :)_  
Steve: _so…you got plans for dinner?_  
Steve: _because I was thinking of staying in. Come over?_

Bucky: _be there in 30._   
Bucky: _btw, I like mushrooms on my pizza. See you soon._

Bucky grins, climbing off the couch and stretching out his stiff limbs. 

“Okay well this has been swell, friends,” he says, grabbing up his phone. “But I have received an urgent summons that can’t be denied. Don’t wait up for me.” 

“I have never and will literally never do that!” Clint yells after his retreating back. 

Bucky can’t even be bothered to come up with a retort.

***

Bucky stays at Steve’s Sunday night as well, protesting heavily when he realizes Steve is actually getting up to leave the next morning. It’s well before sunrise. Steve kisses the top of Bucky’s ruffled head and leaves a key on the counter, and the coffee pot ready to brew. 

It feels extremely easy. 

He tells this to Maria at lunch. 

She groans, and he suspects that she’s glaring at him from behind her aviator sunglasses. 

“Rogers I love you but I cannot handle this level of chipper right now.” 

He laughs, looking closer at her, “Oh-ho, a _two_ day hangover Hill? Are we getting a little old now?”

“It’s champagne,” she grumbles, “for some reason it just won’t leave my system. At least it’s better than yesterday. It occurs to me that we aren’t twenty-two anymore Steven.” 

They’re sitting on one of a handful of picnic tables on a little square of grass outside the commissary. He realizes now that she does look a tad paler than usual, and the sunglasses aren’t a normal thing. It’s funny though with Maria, you’d never be able to tell otherwise that she isn’t feeling absolutely top of her game. She doesn’t have a hair out of place or a single stray wrinkle to her uniform. She looks like she always does—competent, capable, and unassailable. 

She’s been like that since they met in officers’ basic. Steve has never been able to determine whether it’s just Maria’s personality, or if it’s because that’s what it takes to be a woman in a male dominated field like this. Possibly it’s some interwoven combo of the two. They’ve overlapped at a couple of duty stations in the years since OCS, and kept in touch between when their assignments were in different parts of the world. Steve has always felt a sense of security when they’re working on the same base, knowing somebody has his back from the get-go in a new place. Their friendship is a rare and dependable constant in a career that brings consistent upheaval.

Which reminds him. 

“So…” Steve begins, “you think they’re handing down deployment orders soon?”

Maria exhales through her teeth with a fffft sound. “I dunno. Probably. Why?”

“Executive buildings just seem a little buzzy. Figured you might know something.”

Maria glances over her shoulder, which Steve takes to mean she might know something and not be supposed to say. 

“Nothing official yet. Not on my desk anyway,” she says in a lowered voice. “But yeah, if I had to guess it’s coming soon.” She sighs. “Pretty sure Phillips is heading over this time too, which means it’s coming for you and me both.”

Steve is a little surprised to hear it. He runs a special ops team, so his redeployment was always guaranteed. But being attached to Phillips, he’d figured she stood a decent shot at not going back for a little while. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

Maria shrugs, taking a swig of her coffee. “Why? It’s what we signed up for, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “So you talked to Sam about it yet?”

She shifts uncomfortably, and he’s pretty sure that’s an answer right there. 

“Not exactly,” she says, uncomfortably. “It’s kind of a downer, you know? Guess I wasn’t ready to break up the fun yet.”

“Yeah.” The word lands heavily. 

Maria clears her throat before formulating the question, “what do you think you’ll do? With Bucky?”

Steve slumps a little over the picnic table, rubbing his face. “I honestly don’t know. I was hoping you’d already blazed a trail and you could give me some advice.” 

“Sorry man,” she laughs without humor. “I don’t think there’s a good way to break it to somebody who’s never been through it before. At least not a way where it doesn’t…change things.”

“I know. But I keep pretending.” 

“You pretty serious about this guy then?” She’s looking away from him as she asks, but he can hear the intent interest in the question anyway. 

He sighs again. “Yeah. I mean—maybe? It’s only been a couple of weeks. I feel like I haven’t had a lot of time to get him used to the deal with all this.” He gestures vaguely at the base around them, and she nods in understanding. 

“That’s rough Steve.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Gonna give it a shot anyway?”

“Think I should?”

“I think only you know. If it’s harder to think of going through it with him or without him.”

“It just feels…hard either way.” 

“Yeah.”

They’re both quiet, looking out toward the sliver of ocean and clear sky that they can see from where they sit. 

“I’ve just done it before when I shouldn’t have.” He says at last. 

Maria nods sadly. That was one of the times they were stationed apart, but she’d heard about it from him as it was breaking down. 

“But this feels different,” he admits, voice soft enough that he’s not sure she’s heard until she replies, 

“Maybe it is. Different. Maybe he’s different.”

“I just…don’t want to let myself think that and be disappointed again, you know? I don’t think this is going to be an easy op this time around either. I don’t know if I wanna be carrying it around with me if it goes bad.”

Her face is distant. “So what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know Hill.” Steve sighs again, deeply. “You’ll let me know if you figure out that magic bullet though, right?”

 

Maria is right—they don’t have to wait long. Orders come down the next day. It’s less than a month’s notice. 

Steve’s team has gotten a three month deployment, which is a mixed bag. It’s the shortest amount of time in terms of assignments you could get, but that probably means whatever they’re headed into is going to be some rough shit. Fast and dirty. 

Maria gets a six month estimate, which in reality probably means she’s looking at eight or nine. Steve feels for her. But she’ll be helping Phillips oversee the construction of an airstrip in key territory, which will be great for her career advancement. It’s just not so great for Sam. 

She tells Steve the day after she and Sam have The Conversation. Sam wants to move in together before she leaves. Maria’s not so sure. 

“He says he’s been thinking about asking me anyway, and it’s not just because of this,” she says. “And that he wants us to do it before I go so that I know I’m coming home to something.” 

Steve nods. That sounds like Sam. 

“I just don’t think he gets how hard it’s going to be. There’s no phones out there, barely a web connection to email. And if it doesn’t work out and he realizes he doesn’t want to do it…”

“Then the fact of _not_ coming home to him will be twenty times worse because you were expecting it?” Steve supplies. 

“Exactly.”

Steve doesn’t tell Bucky that first night. Or the second one. He feels like an ass, and like it’s becoming a lot more like lying as each day passes. But then they’re laughing about something happy or Bucky is telling Steve an exaggerated story about a work crisis, and Steve just doesn’t want to bring it down. 

And then the date is over and they’re kissing goodnight and he still hasn’t said anything. 

But he knows they are running out of time.


	11. Eleven

Near the end of the week, Steve asks Bucky if he wants to meet him again at the dog beach with Baby. 

They’ve seen each other almost every day since the ball, stealing as many moments in each other’s presence as both of their schedules allow. And okay, maybe more than their schedules allow, because Bucky at least has blown off two previously planned engagements to hang out with Steve instead. He can’t help it. 

He gets to the beach after Steve this time, taking the steps down to the sand two at a time and scanning for Baby’s chubby body at the surf line. 

The beach is nearly deserted, close to sunset. The weather has finally changed for the chillier breezes of winter—or so Bucky thinks. He mentioned this to Steve and received some heavy mocking; Steve grew up in New York, and is still wearing his t-shirts and shorts most days. Bucky’s got a native’s intolerance for anything outside a sunny 76-80 degree window and has fully transitioned into the sweater section of his closet. 

Bucky sees Baby just as she takes a tumble head over heels, jumping up to bark at the ocean in retaliation. 

He sees Steve sitting not far from her on the beach, and plops down beside him in the sand. 

“Hi—” he starts with a smile. 

Steve doesn’t wait for the rest of the greeting, but reaches out and cups Bucky’s face in both hands, pulling him into a crushing kiss that leaves him a little breathless. 

“Wow,” Bucky says when Steve draws back enough for him to catch his breath. “What was that for?”

“Nothing, just…just happy you’re here.” Steve says. But there’s something underneath his even tone, and Bucky could almost swear that his eyes are glassy with held-back tears.

“Steve?” he asks in a whisper, his heart suddenly racing with fear. “Everything okay?”

Steve doesn’t meet Bucky’s eyes as he nods his head, hands now dangling over his knees. “Yeah Buck, I’m okay. I just—” he takes a deep, steadying breath that frightens Bucky more than anything he’s said, “I need to talk to you about something.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says, hating how small his voice is, “okay.” 

And he knows this is it. Somehow, somewhere in the last weeks of spending time together Steve has finally realized that Bucky is vain and messy and selfish and all the things Steve isn’t. And because Steve is all those things he’s about to let Bucky down easy, be really nice about it, and Bucky knows it’s going to break his heart. Suddenly as he thinks he is counting down heartbeats until this comes to an end, everything he’s been feeling and not admitting since he met Steve has clarified into a perfect, undeniable, and useless piece of knowledge: 

He never wants to let Steve go. 

He doesn’t think Steve is about to give him a choice. 

Unbidden, he feels his throat becoming intolerably thick and choked, and he tries to swallow the feeling away. He can’t start crying right now before Steve has even said it. Steve has to say it, or he won’t accept that it’s happening. He sniffs as quietly as he can. 

Steve notices anyway. 

“Oh! Bucky, I—” he says with a horrified look, “I’m sorry, please don’t—”

He pulls Bucky to his chest, wrapping his arms around his back and swaying slightly as he holds him tight. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s saying over and over like an incantation. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, I didn’t know how to bring it up…”

Bucky snuffles and pulls away from Steve’s arms, not bothering to hide his look of confusion. 

“I—tell me what?”

“About the orders—shit! I should’ve known you’d hear from somebody else, it’s not like I’m the only person you know on base—”

“What orders?” Bucky breaks in, still trying to catch up. Steve is—is Steve not breaking up with him right now?

Now Steve is also looking back at him in confusion too. “I—I’m getting deployed again. End of the month. Sorry, I thought you’d found out and that’s why…wait, why were you…?”

Bucky rubs a hand over his nose, trying not to sniffle again. 

“You said ‘we need to talk’…I thought you were breaking up with me.” 

He’s trying his best to process both his elation that that _isn’t_ what was happening right now and also the news that Steve has just dropped on him.

“You’re getting sent…sent back?”

Steve nods, anguish written all over his face. He makes a motion with his hand as if to wipe Bucky’s cheek, but drops it halfway. 

“Yeah I am. I’ll get leave for Thanksgiving and then ship out straight from there.” 

“oh.” 

“I’ll be gone at least three months.” 

“okay.”

Bucky is trying to wade through this and formulate an actual response. He’s suddenly struck by all the questions he hasn’t asked enough of—about what exactly Steve does in the Corps, about what happened on his other tours, about how he stays safe. He has to stay safe. 

“I know it’s a lot Buck, and I know this is still new. I don’t want to make you—”

“What about Baby?” Bucky blurts, cutting him off. 

“I—what?”

“Where will Baby go while you’re away?”

“Oh, um,” Steve says, a little lost at the abrupt change of direction, “I haven’t thought about it yet…I guess I thought maybe I would ship her to my mom if I have to…”

“I’ll take her.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, just stares at Bucky blankly for a minute. Then his face softens, and he speaks slowly to Bucky like someone soothing a child out of an irrational tantrum.

“Bucky, you don’t have to do that. It’s not—I’ve got people I can ask to do that.”

“But you don’t have to,” Bucky says, more firmly, warming to the idea, “I want to. I want to watch her for you, because I know you’ll miss her. And she’ll miss you,” he says in a rush, voice rising a little, “and if you’re over there missing her and she’s with me missing you then maybe I won’t feel so alone missing you too and maybe you’ll remember to miss me.” 

His voice breaks a little on the last word, and he looks away, corners of his mouth turning down as he commands himself to get it together. 

Steve is silent for a minute. The sun is well and truly setting now, just a two thirds ball of orange fire on the horizon line, staining everything purple. Even the ocean seems to be holding its breath for them, lapping at the shore without the crash and vigor it normally attacks with. 

“You think I wouldn’t miss you?” he asks at last, his voice odd. 

Bucky looks over at him, and Steve’s face is stony, pointed toward the horizon so that Bucky is looking only at his profile. 

“would you?” Bucky asks, and his voice is again small—diminished to nearly nothing by his fear of Steve’s answer.

Steve looks at him now, and his expression is hard and unreadable. 

“Bucky I fucking miss you when you go back to your own apartment to shower. I miss you every single hour I have to be at work and not with you. So yeah I’d fucking _miss you_ when I’m an ocean away and I can’t call and I can’t hear your voice or see your face or even know if you’re still here—but it’s not that easy.”

Bucky’s mouth has dropped open a little as Steve talks, registering what Steve’s actually saying even though the words are coming out angry. 

“It’s not that easy,” Steve says again, sounding a little softer, which is to say a little sadder. “Because I’ve done this before and it’s hard, and it might be easier just to say this is too new to survive this and we…we can miss each other for a little while and move on. Instead of…instead of missing each other so much that it hurts, and the hurt makes the end happen anyway.” 

He trails off, sounding much less certain than he did when he started. Bucky thinks for a moment. Then he tilts his head up, setting his chin stubbornly. 

“No.” He says.

“No?” 

“ _No_. You said you weren’t breaking up with me.” 

“I don’t—Bucky, it’s not about what I want—”

“So don’t break up with me. Let me miss you…” his face twists again, and his final words come out as a whisper, “let me be here when you come back.” 

Steve’s face is a desperate war between hope and despair, and he leans toward Bucky, pressing their foreheads together, his eyes closed. 

“And what if I don’t come back?”

Bucky lets a small, sharp exhale escape him at the thought. But he reaches up to hold onto Steve’s neck with both hands. 

“Then I make sure Baby doesn’t go back to the pound.”

Steve gives a shaky shadow of a laugh. 

“Bucky, you don’t have to do this. It’s not fair…”

“Shut up,” Bucky breathes, “just shut up and let me not miss you for a minute.” 

He pulls Steve’s mouth to his as twilight darkens the sand around them, and the line between black ocean and night sky becomes impossible to find.


	12. Twelve

Even the three weeks before Steve’s departure feels like much less. 

He works long hours with his team—now that they have some details of their assignment they have to double down on specific drills, making sure they’ll be ready the minute they set boots on the ground. 

When he is home, he’s weary, sore, and drained. Bucky drinks the moments in anyway, sitting awake and running his fingers through Steve’s hair when Steve has fallen asleep with his head in Bucky’s lap. 

Steve will have two weeks of pre-deployment leave beginning the day before Thanksgiving, but he’ll be spending it back east with his mom. He’ll catch a marine transport plane straight out of New York. 

Bucky understands. He hates it, but he understands. 

He’d thought there would be so much to say to each other, so many words to cram into the time before Steve leaves. Instead, he finds that there is very little that is important enough to mar the moments by saying. 

When Steve is gone, he’ll only have words—however many Steve can manage to find time to send him—dry and stark in the body of censored emails. And the silences will be just silences. They won’t have these blissful moments of quiet which are actually full of each other’s breathing and heartbeats and sighs and togetherness. 

They don’t say goodbye at the airport, when the time comes. Bucky may have an appreciation for a dramatic aesthetic in most circumstances, but he’s not a total masochist. 

Besides, he’s got Baby to account for. 

Instead, they say their farewells at Steve’s apartment so that Bucky can leave before Maria arrives to get him to the airport. 

She’s spending her leave in town with Sam to mark their first holiday in their new, shared apartment. 

They stand in the middle of the living room, a few feet from the door, wrapped in each other’s arms. Steve is the perfect height, Bucky thinks. Bucky’s arms are wrapped around his waist, and Steve’s around Bucky’s neck, Bucky’s head tucked under his chin. By his feet is a pile of Baby’s things; her dog bed, food bin, bag of toys, and a spare of everything. On top of it all sits the one house plant that used to sit on the sill of Steve’s bedroom window—he asked Bucky to take that too, just so it doesn’t die. 

Steve has, absurdly, opted to keep his lease up on the apartment, even though Bucky offered to help him move his things into storage. But Steve says he’d rather just pay the rent while he’s gone so that he doesn’t have to unpack anything when he comes back. 

Bucky hates the empty window sill, and he hates the thought of Steve’s shirts and books and shampoo all sitting in their respective places alone and untouched and unused for three months. 

_Give or take_ , he reminds himself, _it could be longer_. 

Steve heaves a sigh into Bucky’s hair, breathing deep like he’s trying to memorize the smell. Then he loosens his grip on Bucky’s shoulders, and reluctantly they both pull back to look at one another. 

Steve lifts a hand to cup Bucky’s cheek. 

“I will be back.” He says, light blue eyes holding Bucky’s dark ones.

“I’ll be here.”

“Good,” Steve says, his mouth curving up in an attempted smile. 

Bucky is going to say _Good_ , back, because that would bookend the moment well, but instead words drop from his lips unbidden,

“I love you.”

Steve draws in a quick breath which is not quite a gasp, and then he pulls Bucky into a tight, fierce hug, burying his face in Bucky’s neck. 

“I love you too.” 

 

When Bucky enters his own apartment, with Baby’s leash in one hand and her dog bed dragging from the other, it’s with a feeling like the world has just stopped turning. 

Clint looks over at the door, taking in the dog and Bucky’s face, and then away. 

“I’ll give you one thing Barnes,” he says, stirring whatever bubbling red concoction he is creating on the stove. “When you commit you really commit.” 

Bucky doesn’t reply. He’s got no words at the moment. So instead he leads Baby back to his bedroom, plopping her bed on the floor next to his and handing her a rawhide to keep her distracted while he flings himself facedown into his pillows. 

He had exerted herculean strength of will and managed not to cry in front of Steve. He knew Steve was already having enough of a hard time with the goodbyes and he hadn’t wanted to make him feel worse. But now the tears are leaking out of him quietly and it feels like his heart is being wrung dry by strong, merciless hands. 

The mattress tips a little as a big, soft dog body creeps up next to him, writhing until she’s lying stretched out next to Bucky. Baby presses her snout under his arm to lick his face. 

Bucky chuckles weakly, and wraps an arm over her. She whuffles his ear. 

“I know,” he says to Baby, “me too.” 

***

He doesn’t hear from Steve as much as he’d like to while Steve is still in New York, about a phone call every other day. Neither of them much knows what to say since “Goodbye” is already done. Bucky gets it though, if he were going into an active war zone his mom would be pretty demanding of his time too. 

Bucky takes Baby to the dog beach, and sits alone watching her play. It’s a busy season for him, going into December and a couple of big holiday events, but it’s hard to think about needing to be around a bunch of people and turning up his charming professional persona. He’d rather be doing this. 

When he gets his first email from Steve, his heart nearly beats its way out of his chest. Then it immediately climbs and falls between joy and despair because it’s _something_ yet at the same time is not _enough_. 

_Bucky,  
Landed yesterday, now settling in to our temporary base of operation. Not sure for how long. I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more. I wish I were home instead, making you help me set up a Christmas tree. We’d have to make sure we only hang plastic ornaments toward the lower half, because Baby likes to think they’re toys and steals them, so glass is out. How is she? I hope she’s being a good girl. I hope you both miss me like I miss you. I love you, Steve _

Bucky stares at the last words for a long minute. 

They’d fallen so readily from him at that last moment, when what they half-meant was _goodbye_. And Bucky couldn’t be sure if it was the goodbyeness of it all that made Steve say it back. 

But there it is in crisp, black times new roman. In writing. In the fucking _cloud_ forever. Bucky snaps the laptop shut. He’ll respond when he has time to feel first, so that it doesn’t seem quite so big and like so much to burden one small email with. 

Bucky shakes his head, changing his mind. He’s going to be reckless instead. He opens the computer again. 

_Steve,  
I love you, I love you, I love you. _

_I can’t believe I didn’t say it a hundred times while I still had you here._

_Baby is good. Though I don’t know why you bothered giving me her dog bed instead of just warning me that I’d be sharing mine for the foreseeable future. Luckily she kicks less than you. We’ve already been to the beach twice, next I’m going to try her at the park near me. The beach is getting too cold (haha, laugh it up)._

_Please be safe.  
Bucky_

***

The second week, he gets a text from Sam. He shakes his head, smiling wryly. Sam doesn’t say it but Bucky knows Steve asked Sam to check up on him. He says yes to beers anyway. Maybe he needs checking up on. 

“So how you doing, man?” Sam asks as they settle into a corner booth. 

It’s kind of a dingy pub close to the base, and Bucky can tell right off the bat that they are two of the only men in here—scratch that, two of the only _people_ here—who aren’t military.

Bucky shrugs, trying to sound casual when he says, “Oh you know—keeping busy.”

Sam kicks him under the booth. 

“Bro you serious? Who are you talking to?”

It startles a laugh out of Bucky, who eyes Sam more appreciatively. He’s always liked having people around him who can see through his bullshit. Maybe Steve’s guess about Sam and him getting along wasn’t so off-base after all. 

“Okay, good question. Who _am_ I talking to? We’ve met like, twice dude, and I know you only got my number because Steve wants you to babysit me.”

“Woow,” Sam drawls, with a hint of a smile, “I get it—everything in the whole world is about you! There’s totally no reason why Steve might have thought you and I would have _anything_ in common to commiserate about in a _mutually beneficial_ friendship type way…”

Bucky grins and puts his hands up, surrendering. 

“Okay okay! I get it. Shit, I’m an asshole. The next round of friendship booze is officially on me.”

Sam grins, and pretends to consider. “I dunno man. You seem kinda high maintenance…”

“True and true,” Bucky says, laughing, “but I do buy top shelf.” 

“Hah! Okay in that case, I’ll give you another shot. How you doing man?”

Bucky lets his smile drop and gives another shrug—a more real, less glib one this time. 

“I honestly don’t know. It’s weird, right? Feels like it’s been so much longer but also like—”

“Like time isn’t passing at all?” Sam suggests. 

“Bingo.” 

“Yeah.” Sam sighs and looks at his beer bottle. 

“You got any idea what she’s doing over there?” Bucky asks. 

Sam shakes his head. “Not really. I know she’s still with Phillips doing oversight and shit, but no idea what they’re working on.” He smiles. “It’s a lot like how it is here I guess, she does important HQ stuff for the boss, I don’t understand and can’t be told most of it—only difference is now she’s in an active war zone.” He tapers off on a sour note. 

Bucky chuckles, and Sam looks surprised. “Sorry, it’s not funny it’s just—yeah. That’s exactly it.” 

Sam huffs. “Lucky us, right?”

“I think so,” Bucky says. He can’t help himself. 

Sam crows a laugh, “man high maintenance _and_ sentimental I love it! Plus you got moves on the dance floor—white boy moves, but still pretty damn cool—I can’t believe no one figured out we should be friends before.”

Bucky grins, “Well I don’t know Captain Hill—Maria—that well, but if she’s like Steve they can be pretty—um, focused?”

Sam snorts, “Stubborn as shit one track mind you mean?”

“Yeah that’s pretty much what I was aiming for.” 

“You got that right my man.”

“Necessity for the job?”

“Something like that.” 

Bucky decides to keep Sam. 

He orders them tequila shots the next time the waitress comes by, because that’s what he does for the friends he likes best. Or at least he did, before Nat started flat out refusing to drink any liquor that isn’t clear—some bullshit about her Russian blood taking over.

They both end up getting trashed. Sam sleeps on Bucky’s couch while Bucky passes out on the sliver of bed Baby has left open for him, still wearing his shoes. 

They’re pretty much friends from that point forward. 

 

_Bucky,_

_A couple weeks in I feel like I’m finally getting acclimated to the weather again. Last time I came home I shivered for a month—and it was July. I guess that will put my temp tolerance about on par with yours, which will be great._

_Getting busy with the work as well. It’s been…a full week. Half of my guys are hopped up on caffeine pills most of the time. It’s not like you can sleep great even when there’s a minute for it. I do okay. Being a fourth timer has its perks, if you can call it that._

_[THIS EMAIL HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BOARD OF INFORMATION. CERTAIN INFORMATION HAS BEEN REMOVED UE TO CONFIDENTIALITY CONCERNS AND FOR THE SAFETY OF ACTIVE OPERATIONS]._

_Anyway, all that to say I’m being as safe as I can and I wish I could tell you more so you’d believe it.  
Have you and Sam tried hanging out again without the tequila yet?_

_All my love, Steve_

_Dear Steve,_

_Just so you know there was a part missing from your last email…guess you said too much huh? Anyway I don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing to know you’re not as safe as I want you to be._

_Sam has been coming with me and Baby to the park—where it’s safe and no one is selling intoxicating liquors (we have to bring our own! haha, jk. Well mostly jk, we did bring beers on Friday)._

_Do you see Maria at all?_

_Love, Bucky_

_Buck,_

_Hey, don’t have a lot of time but just wanted to let you know I may not be able to write for a few days. Can’t say much (still, ever, sorry) but I didn’t want you to worry._

_Yours, Steve_

***

A week passes without hearing anything more from Steve, and then a couple of emails come in a spurt, each of them short and succinct and unsatisfying—just letting Bucky know he’s alive, and not much else. 

Bucky knows that it means that Steve’s mission has heated up to the point where he doesn’t have time. Or that his mission is keeping him for longer and longer times away from whatever base they have set up. He tries not to dwell too hard on it, because his lack of knowledge just means he can only obsess over whatever undetailed and horrifying scenarios his brain can concoct on its own. 

“That sucks man,” Sam says, picking through the boxes of pizza on the coffee table to find a slice with no peppers. 

“He seriously can’t tell you anything?” Clint asks from his perch on the edge of the kitchen countertop. 

The four of them—Bucky, Sam, Clint, and Nat are doing pizza and movie night, only the movie keeps getting put off as they continue to chat. 

After the morning Sam woke up on Bucky’s couch to Clint yelling _already are you SERIOUS?_ at Bucky, he’s been invited to hang out at their apartment several times. Clint had been so relieved that Sam _wasn’t_ a sad, cheating hookup of Bucky’s that Clint had gone out of his way to be nice to him, which was a rare thing. 

“It’s harder on you guys than it is on them,” Natasha says unexpectedly, not looking up. “When it gets like that, I mean. It’s easier to be busy—harder not to be hearing anything about it.” 

Bucky can see Sam giving her a look similar to his in his peripheral. He looks at Sam and shrugs. Once again, he’s reminded of how he doesn’t know quite what Natasha does for work—and suddenly, he wonders about the handful of “business trips” she takes each year. He’d assumed she was doing professional development seminars or corporate team building retreats like Clint’s job is always forcing him to go on. 

“Why is that, do you think?” Sam asks her, delicately, tone neutral. 

Bucky appreciates the way he does it—it’s a question that there’s no way Bucky can ask. It’s way long past when she would have told him if he did. They have a good thing going. But Sam doesn’t have any water under the bridge here, and he can ask. 

To Bucky’s surprise, she cocks her head, thinking about it. 

“It’s like—you spend a lot of time thinking and strategizing and planning for a thing like that. So you’ve already lived through it a million times in a million scenarios—it’s a relief to know okay, you’re here, whichever way it goes this is the last time I have to run this one. Get it done and it’s over for real this time.” She pauses, mouth twisted. “Adrenaline can get you pretty far.” 

“And it’s harder for us because we don’t know the scenarios, and we don’t have the adrenaline?” Sam asks. 

“Yeah, something like that. Waiting in the dark is always the real bitch.” 

“Interesting.” 

They start the movie pretty soon after that. 

***

Then it’s Christmas Eve, and Steve’s last email to Bucky was four days ago. 

He’s taken to refreshing the email app on his phone nearly every ten minutes. He’s not positive of the exact time difference (because he doesn’t know exactly where Steve is) but he figures it doesn’t matter, since Steve might grab a minute to write to him at any time of the day. 

Bucky thinks it’s starting to annoy his mom. She was always really strict about being _present_ at the dinner table when they were growing up. Now he can tell she _really_ wants to tell him to put his phone down during family time, but is restraining herself because she doesn’t want to infringe on his adult independence. It’s sweet, actually. 

So he’s taken a moment to steal away to his old bedroom to check it, sitting on the slightly musty twin bed. It’s not like his parents have kept it as an untouched shrine to his childhood or anything—they’ve removed several of the more colorful posters he’d had up in here—but they’ve left a lot of his old stuff in place and kept it as a bedroom for his oldest sister’s two kids to bunk in when they come to town. He’s lucky—his younger two sisters’ room had been converted into a den the second the last one was out of the house. He still has crap here he’s never been asked to sort through yet. Being the only boy of the family has its benefits. 

He’s sitting on top of his treasure map comforter, flipping idly through whatever book of his his nephews had left on the nightstand last time they were here—he doesn’t remember ever reading it—when his email pings. Without him even refreshing it. 

Bucky takes a deep breath, vowing that if this is a spam email he will hunt down the sender of it in person to wreak his vengeance on them, and opens the app. 

It’s _Steve._

_Bucky,_

_Merry Christmas! I don’t know if it will be Christmas yet when you see this, but it’s Christmas here and I’m sending you every good wish I have. There’s not much cheer to be had out here, but we did break out some special MREs and a couple of the guys hung some kind of green something on the fronts of the Humvees. Pretty sure that’s not regulation, but I’m gonna let it slide tonight._

_I wish I were with you. I don’t know what you normally do for Christmas, but I’ll tell you what I’m picturing. Since your parents are in town, I have this selfish idea that we’d have stayed at my place this whole week. We’d have dinner with them (because in this fantasy you wanted me to meet them). Then we’d go home together, and lie under the tree and look up at the lights with Baby, who would want to root around in the presents because she always thinks they’re for her. We’d give each other gifts and yours would be way better—just guessing, something about you makes me think you’re a really good gift giver—but you’d pretend to like yours anyway. Maybe one of us will have gotten a new set of sheets from our parents, because parents love to give that kind of thing. So we’d snuggle down in them and make New Year’s plans, because you’re forward thinking like that._

_Then maybe we’d talk about the year after that. And then maybe if it was a really good Christmas, we’d talk about forever._

_Is that okay to say? I hope so._

_I miss you so much._

_Steve_

Bucky slumps back against the headboard of his old bed with a whoosh of breath. He—Steve—did he mean…? 

His mom is calling up the stairs, telling him to come down because dessert is ready, and he tries to get up but he can’t quite catch his breath. He wants to sit here and reread that email until it makes sense and he can think of something to say that gives Steve back even a little piece of how perfect it was. 

Bucky shakes with a silent laugh, helpless. He looks around the room again. It’s funny, no matter how long it’s been since he moved out, he’s always found that being back here puts him right back into being that awkward, confused seventeen year old he was here. But not right now. That seventeen year old couldn’t have in his wildest dreams imagined Steve, and how good he’d have it right now. 

His mom calls again, more impatient this time. He forces himself to get up and go to the door, wondering how on earth he’s going to keep his face from looking like he just swallowed the moon. 

***

He doesn’t keep anything off his face. His two sisters who are there pounce on him immediately, and he ends up telling his whole family (minus the sister who is out of state) about Steve. 

One sister and his mom are delighted at his happiness but pissed at him for not telling them he had a new boyfriend. 

His dad has way too many detailed questions about Steve’s job and random military stuff because he’s read eighty-five different military history books and is obsessed. He is pissed because Bucky can only answer about five percent of his questions. 

The final sister is also delighted, gets why he didn’t bring it up sooner because, duh. She is instead pissed because Bucky basically has a dog now and didn’t bring her with him. 

Bucky has enough of his family fairly quickly. Having four people in a small living room all simultaneously thrilled with you, furious with you, and grilling you for information at the same time is a lot. 

He just wants to go home and read Steve’s email one thousand times. He hopes he was at least serious about wanting to meet Bucky’s family, because a promise to that effect is extorted from him under pain of death before they let him escape.

 

By the time New Year’s rolls around, he hasn’t heard from Steve again. But he’s read the Christmas letter every single day, and finally managed to send one back that wasn’t just “WHAT THE FUCK” and “STEVE ARE YOU SAYING WHAT I THINK YOU’RE SAYING” and “I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO GET MARRIED IN OCTOBER FYI” all in caps a million times. He sends something a little more moderate. But he’s pretty sure the sentiment still makes its way in. 

It’s crazy, Bucky tells himself. It’s crazy to be letting himself get this serious about Steve already. But then he thinks that it’s not really about letting himself do anything honestly, all he’s doing is acknowledging the reality that somehow he is really serious. That with Steve gone there’s already a huge gaping hole where he should be, and Bucky is at a lost trying to figure out how to live around it. 

Because of the radio silence, he’s a little out of sorts by the time everyone (Sam, Nat, and Clint who is already there) has arrived for New Year’s Eve plans. 

He’s glad that their brief discussion about whether it might be better to go out for the evening had died in the planning stages. There’d been some thoughts about how maybe it would be good for Bucky and Sam to have some distraction, before everyone realized that going out on a night where they’d end up surrounded by a giant crowd of people kissing might be the wrong kind of distracting. 

So they’re all in pajamas instead. Bucky picked the wine, Clint made a pot of spaghetti sauce that could clearly feed twelve of them, Natasha brought one of everything (it seems) from the candy aisle, and Sam has brought a dozen elaborate cupcakes from the _fancy_ grocery store. 

“Because he’s a _fancy_ boy,” Bucky says, shoving a whole cupcake into his mouth in one go. 

Sam looks at him disparagingly as he flips to the ball drop channel. 

“You’re gross. Who raised you?”

Bucky grins at him, knowing his teeth are full of red velvet cake. Sam groans. 

They have at least two cycles of sugar highs and crashes before midnight, reviving themselves with spaghetti and garlic bread in between to “soak up the sugar,” as Clint says. It seems to work okay. 

Everyone makes steady but unhurried progress with the wine, so when the countdown starts they’re all pleasantly flushed and happy enough to yell along. They all cheer and pop the handful of little poppers Bucky found leftover from some event in a box in their closet earlier. 

“Alright, boys, kisses for luck,” says Nat. 

She goes around the circle and gives each of them a chaste peck which is more sound ( _muah!_ ) than contact. It’s a sweet gesture that Bucky appreciates. 

He does note that Clint gets the same kiss as he and Sam, no extra flourish, so he figures maybe that it’s less on-again currently than he’d thought. Neither one seems to feel too broken up about it. And later on Clint flicks a whole spoonful of spaghetti sauce directly across Nat’s face in revenge for her eating the last Reeses—whatever that means. 

They all crash for real not long after that, with Nat and Sam flipping a coin for who gets the couch and who gets Bucky and Clint’s ancient camp roll on the floor. (The coin flip is at Nat’s insistence even though Sam offers to take the floor which she will absolutely not allow because _feminism means equality, SAM._ She wins the coin flip anyway though, so both of their honor is satisfied).

Bucky crawls into bed, shoving Baby over a little to squeeze under the blankets next to her. She barely raises her head off her paws to crack one disgruntled eye at him. He’d taken her on a long trip to the dog park earlier to make sure she was sacked out tonight when guests arrived, and apparently it worked too well. 

“Mmph,” Bucky says as she melts back toward him into the little amount of space he managed to clear. The problem is that she refuses to lay straight up and down like a human, preferring to sprawl at a sort of angle for maximum bed-hogging. 

He gives her another little push, and evidently this time she decides he means business because she rolls over onto her back, gazing at him pitifully over her pink and black spotted belly. He relents immediately, giving in to the tummy rub. 

“Such a good girl…who is? You!” he coos. 

Bucky rolls onto his back, trying to angle at least one of his legs into a little more space around Baby’s dead weight. Then he pulls out his phone, tapping the email icon as soon as he unlocks it out of recently formed habit. Nothing new. 

He taps to start an email to Steve instead. 

_Steve,_

_Did you realize when I offered to keep Baby for you that once I had the dog I knew the man would have to follow?_

_Attached a photo of the bed hog._

_Love and a New Year’s kiss, Bucky_

He doesn’t expect, when he wakes up a little bleary from too-short a night of sleep, to wake up to a reply. 

_Buck,_

_You ever stop to think that once the dog and I had YOU, we knew you were stuck with us?_

_Cute photo, I’m sure she totally didn’t steal the rest of those blankets while you were sleeping._

_I’ve been on the go—haven’t had much access to internet. Don’t have a ton of time now either but I couldn’t head back out without letting you know three things: 1. I want to meet your family the minute you want me to meet them, 2. I don’t want you to start another year without a kiss from me to ring it in, and 3. I’m counting down the days between you and me. I’m not sure exactly how many it is but I’m counting anyway. I’d count the minutes if I could._

_Yours always, Steve_

So yeah, Bucky begins the new year with some tears because that's apparently what he does now. Luckily, it’s half happy tears—and he has Baby to lick them all off his face anyway. 

***

January is like Januarys always are, when the post-holiday rush settles in to a kind of bleak winter monotony. And since there’s no more Christmas lights and trappings to make the cold feel charming and cozy, Bucky is very ready for it to go away. His days settle into a routine that makes time pass both much faster and much slower than he’d like. 

He hates that he has a routine that Steve isn’t a part of—sporadic heart-stopping email update notwithstanding. 

He likes that he is busy enough now prepping for several big spring events (and one Valentine’s thing he is _not_ excited about) that he can go for several minutes at a time thinking about something that isn’t Steve. 

He does his best with what he’s got to work with. 

The missing and the absence have subsided from a feeling like tragedy—where he is constantly afraid he’ll have to duck into a restroom to pull himself together—into something more like a constant, dull ache under his breastbone. He doesn’t always immediately remember why there’s a vague discontentment hanging around him, but the second he thinks about it that pain throbs loud enough to make sure he’s reminded. 

Bucky can only be grateful that he has Sam. Which of course, is another thing he loves about Steve—that Steve knew they needed each other and guessed also that they’d get along. 

He and Sam are so different—Sam has a calm kind of magnanimity about the whole situation that Bucky can’t muster—but they also _get_ each other. Sam gets that he’s lucky because Maria is with HQ and is able to email every night. Bucky gets that he’s lucky because Steve’s tour is half is half the time of Maria’s. So it’s never a contest; they’re happy for each other and sympathetic in equal measure. 

Steve doesn’t make any more startling statements in his emails in January. Bucky thinks that some kind of holiday spirit must have swooped in and possessed him after all, to bring those out. Or it’s also possible that he’s just tired. He mostly is able to send Bucky something about once a week, but Bucky can tell that the ability to email does not correspond with any other kind of downtime. Mostly it’s hurried _I love yous_ and _I miss yous_ which Bucky needs…but he needs Steve to be home more. 

Bucky and Sam take Baby to the beach, even though it’s too cold. Natasha makes him start a tae-Kwando class with her. Clint begins cooking for him without asking.  
Then January is over, and February (the shortest month! Bucky tells Sam with a punch to the arm) has arrived. 

The shortest month also means the fewest emails. Bucky’s Valentine’s Day fundraiser is a big success. He can’t even revel in getting to wear an obnoxiously pink shirt. He goes home and sobs into his pillow after. 

When March rolls around, Bucky’s skin is singing with the fact that _this is the month_ that Steve is supposed to be home. He hopes he’ll be home. He wants him to say he’s coming home.

It’s been two weeks since Steve’s last email.


	13. Thirteen

He’s at the shitty Marine Corps pub with Sam again on the first Friday of March. He likes the place better since Sam confirmed that it’s Steve and Maria’s favorite haunt—but not a lot better. He gets the convenience of location to the base but…the ambience is sadly deficient. They could all do better with like, four more blocks of walking. _Marines_. 

Sam is trying to cajole him out of his funk, which is an agreement they have both made wordlessly over the past couple of months. One of them will try to cheer up the other whenever he has gotten a little too down. Unless they’re both down—then they just drink. 

“Come on bro, what if I bought us a round of tequila shots?”

That gets a laugh from Bucky. 

“I’m serious!” Sam says, motioning as if he’s about to get up for the bar, “I’ll take the hit, man if that’s what it takes.” 

“Nah, I’ve seen the shit you drink. If you give me a shot of Jose Cuervo I swear to god I will immediately puke it back on your shoes.” 

Sam rolls his eyes, hands up in defeat. “What do I tell you. High maintenance.” He looks down at his feet. “These are my good shoes too.” 

Bucky looks at them and scrunches his face. “Are they though?”

“What!” demands Sam, affronted. “These are cool shoes man!” 

“Look, I know you’re black so you have a little extra spidey sense for what’s cool as your birthright—”

“—damn straight I do—”

“But you’re still straight, man.” 

“So?”

“So you could be doing _more_ on the shoe front.” 

“You know what Mr. Teen Southern California, I can _not_ be having this conversation with you right now. Time for you to drink or get ready to fight me.” 

“Alright fine, I will do _one_ tequila shot with you that is El Jimador or better.” 

“Coming right up princess.”

Bucky flips him off with a grin as he slides out and heads to the bar, shaking his head. 

Then he sighs. The second Sam isn’t there actively taking his mind off things he immediately comes back to that sore, anxious center. 

It’s like the moment the calendar flipped from February 28 to March 1 he hasn’t been able to sit still. He hasn’t even had confirmation from Steve that he’s for sure coming home this month—for all he knows this current extra-long silence means his departure is going to be delayed. But his heart still skips a beat every time he writes a date with a three in front of it. 

He glances over to the bar, keeping an eye on Sam. Usually the guy doesn’t have too hard a time getting in there for a drink order, but not everybody has Bucky’s preternatural gifts with wooing bartenders, so he likes to make sure his help isn’t needed.

But Sam isn’t at the bar. Bucky frowns, scanning again. No, he’s not tucked in anywhere along the polished length of it. Bucky looks for the obnoxious red t-shirt Sam is wearing, finally catching sight of him at the far end of the place. 

He’s got his phone in one hand, the other covering his free ear to hear the person on the other end better over the hum of the pub. 

The look on his face freezes every nerve ending in Bucky’s body. 

It’s not that Sam looks upset. It’s the opposite actually—his face is such an absence of anything that it can only be the result of needing not to feel one single shred of emotion in the moment. 

Bucky doesn’t know how he knows—he just knows. Something’s happened to Captain Hill. 

He doesn’t have control of his limbs, but somehow they are unfolding themselves and sliding out of the booth. There’s a droning in his ears drowning out whatever noise the bar is making. His eyes are on Sam. Sam’s set expression and jerky nodding. He crosses the bar without recognizing his feet are doing it. 

Sam is hanging up the phone as Bucky reaches him, looking at the dark screen until Bucky reaches out to touch his shoulder. 

He spins, eyes not looking quite exactly at Bucky but focusing somewhere distant. 

“She’s not—she’s gonna be okay—they said—”

“Come on,” Bucky says, pulling him toward the back door. They’re starting to get a few looks from the around bar—and even though probably the crowd in here would get it better than most it doesn’t feel like the place to do this. 

He pulls Sam, unseeing, out into the narrow alley that runs behind the bar. 

“Okay, okay, try again—what happened? She’s okay?”

Sam nods on the last word, closing his eyes, and Bucky reaches out to grip his arm. Sam leans his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder and releases a shaky breath. 

“They said—she’s in Germany. At a hospital. She’s going to be okay, they said.” He repeats the last part like he’s trying to reassure Bucky of the fact, though Bucky knows it’s for himself to hear. 

“Did they tell you what happened?”

“They—” Sam’s voice goes hoarse over the word, and he clears his throat, trying again. “They were the second car in a convoy. First one hit an IED in the road—her driver swerved to try to avoid it but then they rolled.” 

Sam recites it in a hollow voice, the same impersonal tone Bucky imagines it was given to him in over the phone. 

“Broke her leg, a couple ribs…took some shrapnel.” He pauses, looking at Sam, confused. “I guess that happened after the windows were broken out from the roll? Maybe there was another…thing. That went off. I don’t know. I didn’t ask…I should’ve asked…” 

“Hey man, hey,” Bucky says, pulling Sam into a tight hug, “it’s okay you can ask more next time they call. She’s okay, that’s the main thing. She’s okay, and look, they’ll probably send her home soon right?”

“It happened _four days_ ago,” Sam says, stricken. “She’s been hurt, in the hospital, who knows what else for _four days_ and I had no idea.” 

The words send a chill through Bucky as he thinks of Steve’s last email. Thirteen days ago. 

He pushes the thought away as forcefully as he can. It’s not about him right now, Sam needs him to be the functioning one. It’s their agreement. 

“No, shhh,” he says to Sam, with as much confidence as he can muster, “hey, if they’d called you four days ago and told you this had happened but they didn’t know anything yet, it would’ve been torture. You’d have been a wreck just waiting to get information—and you know how bad they are about that. It would’ve been so much worse than getting this call now and knowing she’s safe, she’s in the hospital getting care, that she’s going to be _fine_.”

“Yeah,” Sam says shakily, though he sounds unconvinced. Bucky can still hear the guilt under the word. “She’s in surgery for her leg and then…then I think it’s just getting her so he can travel.”

“Dude I bet the next call you get will be from her then! Once she’s out of sedation you know she’s going to talk _someone_ into giving her a phone whether they want to or not. Especially once she realizes they’ve called you already.”

“Yeah…yeah. Maybe. I—I hope so.” He pulls out of Bucky’s grip, and rubs his hands over his face roughly. 

“What do you need right now?” Bucky asks, peering at him, hands still on his shoulders. It’s as much to steady himself as it is to steady Sam. “You wanna come stay with me and Clint for a day or two? Just so you aren’t on your own?”

Sam shakes his head, heaving a deep breath and looking a little more focused when he looks at Bucky. “Nah man I—thanks. But I should go home. I…I should call Maria’s sister and her dad, make sure they know. I’m not…not sure if they’ll have gotten a call. She changed her emergency contact to me on all the stuff before she left but...they should hear.”

“Okay. For sure. But hey?” He looks at Sam’s face again, the lost expression. “At least let me drive you home okay?”

 

He makes Sam a large mug of tea and makes sure he manages to get his shoes off before leaving him to make his phone calls. He looks very small as Bucky leaves him, with a blanket around his shoulders, less crossed under him on one end of the couch. 

_She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine_ , Bucky repeats to himself like an enchantment as he drives home. _Stop freaking out because she’s going to be okay_. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. 

He’s deeply grateful when he gets home and finds Clint out. He needs to get himself together before he sees anyone else, and the brittle restraint he exercised over himself in order to take care of Sam is fracturing in a million places. Bucky feels like he might shake himself apart. 

Baby seems to perceive his mood, and doesn’t rush him with the enthusiasm or force she normally shows when he returns from being out. Instead she pads over to where he stands, just inside the doorway, and sits on his foot. She leans her big body against his leg and looks up at him with sympathetic brown eyes. 

He runs his hands through his hair several times—trying to think just enough past the cracking dam wall of his emotions to move himself past the entry way. 

He can’t. He can’t just go back to his bedroom and sit here, alone with this. 

Bucky turns on his heel, snatching Baby’s leash down from its hook by the door. 

“Come on Baby. I’m taking you home.” 

 

Bucky lets them into Steve’s darkened apartment, feeling like they’re sneaking in. In fact he’s been over two other times, using the key Steve left, to pick up a couple of forgotten items of Baby’s. 

Both times he’d left as quickly as he could, not wanting to spend time with Steve’s things all looking so lonesome and abandoned (or feeling like one of them). 

This time he lets Baby off the leash—she moves immediately to jump onto the couch, curling up with a sigh like she’s glad to finally be back—and heads straight back toward Steve’s bedroom. 

He rummages blindly through the drawers of Steve’s bureau, everything folded and left in perfect military order, yanking out a sweater and holding it to his face. 

He breathes in deeply, shuddering breaths, trying to let himself be comforted by the scent that lingers in the weave—of Steve’s laundry detergent, and a bit of evergreen from the sachets Steve keeps in his drawers like an eighty year old man to keep moths away…and something underneath that’s just a barely there hint of what Bucky thinks is just the smell of Steve’s skin. 

Bucky balls up the sweater in his hands, taking it with him over to Steve’s bed where he yanks the comforter free from Steve’s sharply tucked boot-camp corners. He crawls in and curls up under the blanket, sweater under his cheek, and lets himself shake. 

There aren’t any tears. He hasn’t even been able to think enough about what he’s feeling to be upset. It’s just his body being wracked with an instinctive reaction to the fear and tension he’s been holding the last hour and a half bleeding out of him. 

He’s been afraid before. He’s afraid every single day that he doesn’t get an email from Steve. But this is different. Maria, lying in the hospital recovering from _that_ is different. 

_It happened four days ago_ , Sam had said. Four days before they called him. 

And Bucky’s throat does close up now, with the dawning realization that if something like that happened to Steve, there would be no call. Not to him. He’s not Steve’s emergency contact, he’s not family, he’s just…he’s just the dogsitter. Steve’s mom probably wouldn’t even think to get in touch with him. And maybe before it would have been Maria, Maria who would have called Sam and broken the news, asked him to make sure it got to Bucky. 

But now he knows that if it happens—fuck, if it has _already happened_ —he’ll find out later. Behind family and friends and whoever else. He’ll be an afterthought. And until then all he can do is wait and hope that moment doesn’t come—hasn’t already come. 

That he isn’t right this moment shuffling through the lingering days of waiting for someone to realize he should know that Steve…Steve isn’t coming back. That his life as he has been dreaming it for the past two months isn’t already over before it’s begun. 

He still doesn’t cry. For all the nights that he’s shed tears into his pillow, missing Steve, this moment seems too big for that. Instead he can only gasp weakly against Steve’s pillow, like a fish left suffocating on the pier. 

He doesn’t notice he’s drifted asleep until he wakes up. Baby has joined him at some point during the night, curled up back to back with him on Steve’s pillow. Bucky gropes for his phone to check his missed calls and email—nothing. 

Eventually he drifts back to sleep. 

Baby wakes him in the morning, asking politely to go out. He realizes it’s actually pretty late—she must have held her bladder and let him sleep for as long as she possibly could. He walks her around the block, ignoring the one or two looks of concern he gets. He’s barefoot and haggard and he probably looks terrifying. 

Then they go back and curl up again in Steve’s bed. Even Baby is subdued and seems happy just to sit quietly near Bucky. Bucky sends an email to a client cancelling their appointment for the afternoon, saying he’s sick. 

Bucky _feels_ sick, too. He feels raw and scraped out. Like all the emotion from the night before was a tumor which has now been excised—badly—and the margins weren’t right, and he can still feel the edges of it there, just waiting to grow back in. 

And he knows he can’t stay here like this forever, curled in a tight ball with his face buried. But he’s going to think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow he’ll figure out how to just keep living like nothing is different because maybe nothing _is_. But not today. 

***

Bucky manages to find two cans of spaghetti-o’s in Steve’s pantry, which he and Baby eat for lunch. He apologizes to her for not thinking about bringing her food. She doesn’t seem to mind. 

Then they retreat again to the cool darkness of Steve’s room, leaving the heavy curtains closed. It leaves the room in a constant sort of grey twilight, without any real sense of how time is passing. Bucky drifts again between being not-quite-asleep where he imagines terrible scenes of war and not-quite-awake where he dreams them instead. 

Baby stays mostly by his side, snoring heavily and seeming to decide that what he needs at the moment is full body contact. 

Which is why he’s startled from a period of –not-quite-awakeness by her barking in the front of the apartment. He hadn’t noticed that she’d left. 

He frowns as her barking intensifies into near frenzy, running a hand through his hair as he slips out of bed. Maybe the mailman is at the door? She usually gets pretty excited about that. 

There’s the sound of movement though on the other side of the door, he notes as he creeps down the hallway. He doesn’t know why he’s trying again to be so quiet—it really doesn’t matter if the fedex guy or whatever knows someone is here. 

Baby’s barking has reached a frantic height, morphing into a pitiful little howl that he’s never heard her make. 

Which is when he hears the scrape of a key being inserted in the lock.

Bucky feels for a moment like he’s been completely paralyzed. His blood is humming under his skin and roaring in his ears. The lock is turning. 

He takes a half step, half stumble backwards so that he can lean against the wall for support. As the handle turns, he closes his eyes tight. 

He doesn’t know who else would possibly have this key. Most likely there’s some good explanation for why a neighbor or a friend or Sam is stopping by to check in. But for a moment, Bucky closes his eyes, and lets himself believe that when he opens them it will be the one person he wants to see standing there. His heart feels ready to break his ribs. 

The door swings open and Baby’s howl turns into yips of excitement, and he can’t stand here huddled against the all with his eyes shut and so Bucky opens them. 

And he knows he must still be dreaming, because the eyes that meet his are unmistakably wide and sea-blue. 

Bucky stares, wanting to drink in Steve’s face before he wakes up—because he knows he’s going to wake up any minute—only…he’s not. And the longer he looks at Steve and Steve looks back at him across the dim living room, the more he thinks he might not be dreaming. 

Baby is falling to pieces, jumping and dancing in front of Steve, and Steve finally takes pity on her to kneel down and allow her to shower him with kisses—all the while not taking his eyes off Bucky. His mouth is slightly open and he looks as surprised and off-balance as Bucky feels. 

And Bucky comes to his senses, crosses the room in four strides, and falls to his knees to throw himself into Steve’s arms. 

Steve twists to wrap Bucky up in them, holding onto him so tight he can feel his ribs shifting to accommodate for it. Baby gambols around them happily. 

After several long moments, Steve releases his grip on Bucky, pulling away to look at him with an expression like awe. 

Steve’s eyes rove over his face, and Bucky’s are doing the same. Steve’s hair has grown a little longer, and Bucky thinks it hasn’t been cut since he left. He has a beard too, and Bucky cups his hand against Steve’s cheek, memorizing the feel of it against his palm. Steve runs his hands over Bucky’s head and shoulders and arms and chest, lightly, barely touching him, as if Bucky is made of glass or vapor and the wrong touch might cause him to vanish. 

“You’re here,” Steve says, just above a whisper. 

Bucky grates out a laugh, flinging his arms again around Steve’s neck. 

“ _You’re_ here!” he says. “How are you here? Am I dreaming?”

But he knows he’s not dreaming. He would never think to dream Steve with a beard, or the way Steve’s uniform hangs a little looser on his frame than it did when he left, or the slight dusty scent of desert sand that rises from it when Bucky presses his nose to Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve nuzzles the side of Bucky’s cheek, and his beard tickles, though not in a bad way. 

“I’m sorry—I got the okay to come back a couple of days ago and I just—I thought I’d just do it. Come back and surprise you. I didn’t want to be smart and make arrangements or anything. But then I heard about what happened with Maria while I was en route and I realized you must’ve—that Sam would’ve just heard too.” 

He buries his face in Bucky’s neck so the next words are muffled. “I’m so sorry. I should have called you the second I finished that last mission I just—I didn’t want to call. I wanted to see your face.” 

Bucky is nodding against his shoulder, but his chin has begun to quiver and there’s a shake in his voice when he says, 

“I couldn’t go home after Sam—I realized I wouldn’t even—nobody would even call me if—”

His voice breaks on the last word and he turns his face away, trying to swipe quickly at the tears which have made a sudden and vengeful reappearance. Steve puts a hand on his cheek, turning his face back to him. He leans in and presses a light kiss across one wet cheek, then the other, then each of Bucky’s eyelids, and Bucky sighs so heavily, sinking against Steve, that he thinks his lungs might have given up. 

“I know,” Steve is saying, quietly, “I know and I’m so sorry.” 

Bucky shakes his head and snatches up both of Steve’s hands into his, holding them to his chest. 

“No,” he says, fiercely, eyes intent on Steve’s. “Don’t be sorry. Be here. Stay with me. Let me be your person—”

Steve cuts him off with a rough kiss, and Bucky’s fingers come up to twine through Steve’s newly long hair. 

“Yes—always, _always_.” 

Steve whispers the words like a prayer against Bucky’s lips.


	14. Fourteen

“Hill come on! Didn’t you specifically tell me last time never to let you drink champagne again?” 

Sam makes a gesture of appeal around the table which is roundly ignored by everyone.

“If I hit the bottom of the bottle you can cut me off okay?” Maria fires back at him with a grin. “But you gotta have champagne for celebrations Sam, it’s like—bad luck not to.” 

“Yeah, Sam,” Steve adds, smirking, “besides what else does she have to do but lounge around being day drunk? Medical leave is practically vacation, right Hill—?” 

His question is answered as a sopping slice of lemon from her water slaps him in the face. She may still be in a wheelchair at the moment, recovering from the injuries to her leg, but her pitching arm works perfectly. 

“Aww lemon in the face, Maria?” asks Bucky, clearly not too concerned. “You could have put an eye out.” 

“Let that be a lesson to you Rogers,” she says with a grin. 

“Hey when are you guys gonna open presents?” Nat chimes in, elbowing Bucky in the ribs. 

“Don’t open mine here,” Clint says, deadpan, “it’s indecent.”

Bucky snorts. “Everything about you is indecent, Barton.”

“Hey open the one from Phillips at least,” Maria says, casting a look toward Steve, “I can’t go home today without my curiosity getting satisfied there.” 

Steve looks at Bucky, raising his eyebrows and shrugging in a wordless _go ahead_. 

Bucky pulls the box onto his lap, eyeing the gold wrapping paper suspiciously. “There is no way this is from him, look at this thing,” he says, tearing into it. 

Inside is a carved wooden cheeseboard and a matching set of cheese knives. Bucky looks at Steve, blankly. 

“Well there’s really _no_ way _this_ is from him.”

“Card!” Nat says helpfully, pointing out the white envelope tucked into the side of the box. 

Bucky rips it open, and begins to read the contents aloud. He doesn’t set out to imitate the Colonel’s voice, but finds he warms to it about halfway through anyway, unable to help himself.

_Barnes/Rogers,_

_Obviously I had no say in the choosing, packaging, or giving of this gift. My wife seems to think this whole thing is my fault and I’m therefore responsible for furnishing you with knick-knacks._

_Anyway please enjoy, also do not feel any need to invite me to the wedding. As I am certain there will be dancing consider this my “no” RSVP and save yourself the stamp._

_Best,  
Col. Phillips_

The table erupts into laughter both at the note and Bucky’s dramatic reading of it. 

“Now _that_ sounds like him,” says Steve. Maria and Bucky agree. 

“Good ole Chester,” Bucky says to Steve with a broad smile. 

Steve slides an arm around Bucky’s neck and pulls him closer to press a kiss to the crown of Bucky’s head, so Bucky really has no choice but to rest his head on Steve’s shoulder. Which is okay by him. 

Nat clears her throat, and everyone turns to look at her. 

“Well since apparently not all of us brought _publically appropriate_ gifts for today,” she says, eyeing Clint sideways, “you can enjoy whatever humiliation is in store for you in the privacy of your own home.”

Clint grins wolfishly. “You’re gonna dig it.” 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Natasha says as everyone giggles. “We’re all really happy for you guys. We’ll all be even happier when you seal this deal because we all know what a nightmare Bucky is when he’s in the throes of planning an event—sorry Steve.” 

Steve tilts his glass at her with a smile and Bucky pretends to look offended. 

“But for today we just want to say we’re all happy to be celebrating you.” She gives a significant look to the other three, “so everybody go ahead and raise your glass—” everyone obeys, “—to Steve and Bucky—”

“—to today,” says Clint (and Bucky and Steve glance at him surprised), 

“—to tomorrow,” adds Maria with a slightly teary smile (and Steve and Bucky are smiling too, turning to Sam expectantly), 

“—and to happy ever after!” he finishes. 

Sam raises his glass on the last word, and everyone clinks their champagne glasses into the center of the table. They all take a long sip, giving Bucky time to try and sneakily wipe his eyes before they set their glasses on the table. He’s turned into such a crier since meeting Steve, but he guesses it’s a fair price to pay. 

He looks at Steve, and Steve is looking at him with what he suspects is a mirror of the sappy, happy grin on his own face. Bucky leans forward, brushing his lips against Steve’s in a light kiss. 

“Seriously, you’re not even going to comment on how awesomely we rehearsed that?” Clint breaks the silence to ask, sounding a little put-out. “I didn’t even write my part down!” 

“It was one word man, come on—” says Sam. 

“— _two_ words!” 

“Okay one real word and one preposition—”

“Boys!” say Nat and Maria at the same time, ending their sniping. 

Steve and Bucky look at each other again and laugh. There’s a warm buzzy feeling under Bucky’s skin that he knows isn’t champagne—just happiness that keeps welling up and spilling over. Steve pulls Bucky’s hand up to his lips, and drops a kiss on his knuckles before turning back to the table. 

“Very well-rehearsed and excellently executed guys, we’re very impressed.” 

“Damn straight,” Clint mumbles under his breath, earning a look from Nat and Maria. 

Bucky looks around at the four of them, and lastly at Steve, his heart swelling. He feels so dopey with the feeling that he knows he’d better turn it into words or he’s going to start giggling and maybe not stop. 

“Well I uh—I didn’t rehearse anything” he says, “but I’ll give it a go.” He picks up his champagne again, and the others follow suit. 

“To friends who rock our world, kick our asses, and have our backs…” 

He pauses a moment to look around the table and smile at each one. In the corner of his eye he sees Maria reach out and squeeze Steve’s hand with hers. Nat puts her hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

Steve looks back at him with an adoring look that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to seeing without his heart skipping a beat. 

He tips his glass, beaming at all of them. 

“…and to being home.”


End file.
